A visit to the Abbey of San Michele can now be made online

The Abbey of San Michele is closed to the public again.

 

The entry into the Abbey of San Michele della Chiusa is currently permitted only on Sunday, for participation in the Holy Mass, at 12 noon. As we wait for its stable and lasting opening, we will be able to visit it virtually, on the official site; this is one more opportunity to explore the whole complex, through beautiful images, following a route designed to captivate visitors, with 18 points of interest.

 

Thus, visitors will be able to identify with the wayfarers and pilgrims of yesteryear, and imagine climbing up the “Tower of the Beautiful Alda”, look out over the precipice to the Valsusa, and relive the legend of Alda, a young peasant woman, who came to the Abbey to pray against the evils of war. Alas, the young woman was surprised by enemy soldiers; she tried to escape their attack by leaping into the ravine and invoking the assistance of Saint Michael and of the Virgin Mary. She was unhurt on landing at the bottom of the precipice, but decided, out of vanity and for money, to leap again, before the incredulous villagers, but this time she did not survive.

 

Translated by Sara Francesca, Charlotte Ovalle

Reviewed by Prof. Rolf Cook