Ostana

Ostana is the most photographed Italian Monviso village — a 85-resident Occitan-speaking commune at 1,280m altitude on the south-facing slope of the upper Po valley, with a direct head-on view of Monviso (the 3,841m pyramidal peak that's the source of the Po river and the visual symbol of the Italian western Alps). The geography and the depopulation story are equally part of the appeal: in 1921 Ostana had 1,200 residents working high-altitude rye + pasture + chestnut economies; by 1985 it was 25 residents, with 60+ ruined stone houses and the village near-officially abandoned. The reinvention started in 1985 when the new mayor Giacomo Lombardo (an architect) launched a 30-year masterplan to rebuild the ruined houses in their original 17th-19th-c stone-and-larch style, attract Occitan-culture residents (Ostana sits in the Italian Occitan linguistic island — the Provençal-related dialect still spoken across the upper valleys of Cuneo + Torino provinces, with maybe 50,000 speakers total), and reposition the village as both an alpine architecture showcase and a cultural-Occitan centre.

It worked: by 2024 the resident population was back to 85 (still tiny but stable, with the demographic curve reversed), 60+ houses had been restored using traditional materials + insulation modern enough to pass Class A energy ratings, the Lou Pourtoun (cultural centre + library + restaurant) anchors the new community life, the village holds the Borghi più belli d'Italia inscription, and architectural press across Europe regularly cites Ostana as a model for Alpine village rebirth. The Premio Ostana — Scritture in Lingua Madre (annual international literary prize for writers in minority/native languages, ranging from Occitan to Sardinian to Maori to Wales-Welsh) is now in its 15th year. Beyond architecture + culture: Monviso direct view from every angle, the GTA (Grande Traversata delle Alpi) long-distance trail crosses the village, the Sentiero del Re (royal hunting trail), and the Po river source 12 km west at the Pian del Re.

The food is Occitan-alpine: gnocchi con bagna cauda, cunsa di bietole, raviolas di rapa, raclette + fontina mountain cheese, the local Barolo + Barbaresco from the Langhe 60 km east. Like all alpine villages, Ostana is winter-quiet — the high season is summer June-September.