Alpine villages
Severe and massive stone houses, narrow streets, wood-fired ovens and fountains. Isolated clusters of buildings, once self-sufficing, that have retained an extraordinary atmosphere. In Bellino, tourists can wander through the hamlets to discover a staggering number of sundials. The hamlet of Chianale, recently listed as one of Italy’s most beautiful villages, is particularly picturesque. You will be surprised by the artistic heritage of this valley: from frescoes decorating votive pillars, houses and chapels, to refined masterpieces by the painters that in the 15th century worked in these churches, harmoniously blending late medieval style with Renaissance innovation. These monuments are part of the cultural route Mistà, in Occitan sacred image, that extends over the territory of the ancient marquisate of Saluzzo.
Discovering the farm houses
The Varaita Valley has always been very populated. Climate conditions and the terrain are very favourable for the agro-pastoral activities and allowed in the past and still allow today the use of the resources at every elevation, thus permits reaching an altitude of 1800 m and with some summer houses even 2600 m, e.g. the grange Sabious in Bellino.
The farm houses in the valley, when seen as a whole for many of them are still intact, tend to soften the landscape and to enrich over generations the natural environment with the contribution of human work.
In the whole area of the Western Alps the type of housing was always conditioned by two cultural roots: the heating method with a fire-place, that formed the system of the integrated house, where men and livestock live under the same roof; and the custom of dividing the inheritance in equal parts, following the rules of the Roman law, which often caused the carving up of the properties in little allotments between the heirs and made adaptations of the housing necessary in order to accommodate the enlarged family circle.
The Lower Valley
In this segment the territory of the valley that extends as far up as Brossasco may be included. It corresponds roughly to the area of the chestnut forest.Here the house is of a limited dimension: a small stable and a tiny hayloft, walls made of small-sized stones, beams of deciduous trees, stone slab roofs; the houses form small centres close to springs or plots.
There is no lack of huts where the chestnuts are dried, small structures with two stories that are divided by a horizontal grate, on which the chestnuts are spread in order to dry in the smoke of the green twigs burning slowly in the lower story. This is the method to produce the so called "castag ne bianche", the white chestnuts.
The Middle Valley
It consists of the municipalities of Valmala, Melle, Frassino and Sampeyre. The farms are small and 
independent but united in settlements, sometimes of large dimensions, in which the houses are always very close together, even touching, because of the successive periods of expansion.
Almost all the families owned a summerresidence (la meiro) close to the private and municipal pastures, where they moved with their livestock for four or five months of the year (1). The house almost always had the façade with the gable turned to the valley and the roof ridge orientated along the maximum slope of the terrain. In Sampeyre the larch begins to replace the other building timber. In the stonework the use of partially worked stones for cornerstones, architraves and doorposts occasionally stands out (2).
The Upper Valley
It consists of the municipalities of Casteldelfino, Pontechianale and Bellino, which erstwhile formed the Escartoun di Chasteldelfin, today known as Castellata, once Dauphin territory, then part of the French Kingdom until 1713.
Here, more than anywhere else, the customs of the patriarchal family were conserved. They hemmed the carving up of the land and the rampant growth of the houses. Therefore the houses are bigger and richer because they are the residences of flourishing farms. They are also more voluminous because they have to house large herds and consequently also the hay needed for them for seven months.
One of the decorative structural elements is the round column (la pilio rioundo) made of stonework, often plastered, which supports the eaves of the roof on the façade as well as on the side (3). This architectural element, present in the whole Varaita Valley and in the neighbouring Maira Valley, gives humble farm-houses the dignity of monuments. The pursuit of beauty appears also in the details: the worked stone, the two-arched window with its elegant little middle column, the portal, the long balcony, the decoration, the sundial, the votive fresco and not to mention the mysterious heads sculpted in stone which are of clearly.