Bellevue Hotel & Spa – a century on the meadows of Cogne

Cogne lies in a side valley above Aosta, 1,534 metres up, on the threshold of Gran Paradiso National Park. On the edge of the village, facing the open meadows of Sant'Orso and the white wall of the Gran Paradiso glacier, stands the Bellevue: a tall, pink-washed mountain house with rows of balconies, opened in 1925 and run by the same family ever since. A law of 1926 stopped anyone building on the meadows, so the land in front of it has stayed open. Inside, it is all wood and stone, antique furniture, grandfather clocks and floral curtains – an old house that has been modernised many times without losing its manners. There are 39 rooms, suites and chalets, four restaurants, a cheese cellar, one of Italy's most decorated wine lists and a 1,200-square-metre spa. The MICHELIN Guide gives the Bellevue two Keys for an exceptional stay.

Here is what a stay is like now: where to sleep, where to eat, and how to spend a day between the meadow and the spa.

01The house

The Bellevue opened three years after the Gran Paradiso National Park was created, in 1922, from the old royal hunting reserve. It soon drew families from Genoa, Turin and Milan, and guests from as far as Belgium. Leone Cesariano Cunéaz, son of the first owners, married Maria Romilda Albert, who became known simply as the Signora of the Bellevue; the family credits her with saving the house from fire and looting in the days of the Liberation. The pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli stayed in those years and practised on an old piano that still stands in the dining room.

Romilda's children Umbertino and Pia took over, then Pia's husband Carlo with his sister Paola and her husband Piero. Today the hotel is led by Paola and Piero's daughter, Laura Roullet, with her husband Domenico and the wider family. The milestones read like a family album: the first pool in 1992, Relais & Châteaux membership in 2000, the Gran Paradiso Springs spa in 2012, and in 2024 two MICHELIN Keys. The house celebrated its centenary in 2025.

02Rooms, suites and chalets

No two rooms are alike. The Superior rooms have wooden floors, some with a balcony or a four-poster bed; the Deluxe Prestige rooms all have a wide balcony facing the glacier, and the Junior Suites a balcony or terrace with the same view. Three suites sit in a renovated wing connected to the main building, and the smaller doubles look out over the village.

Insider tip

Le Petit Bellevue has five tables and closes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays – book it with the room.

The Angels' Nest, inaugurated in December 2015, is the room people ask about. It measures about 80 square metres and has a 180-degree view over the Sant'Orso meadows to the Gran Paradiso and Mont Blanc glaciers, a water fireplace, a canopy bed, a covered terrace and two bathrooms – in one of them a bathtub that slides outside, enclosed in glass. In front of the hotel stand three chalets on two floors, each with a water fireplace: Lou Beu and Lou Mayen, at 48 square metres, take up to four guests, while La Cheminée, 90 square metres with two bedrooms and a king-size jacuzzi, sleeps six.

03Where to eat

Le Petit Bellevue is a small room of five tables, each set to evoke a different period, with 19th-century paintings of everyday life on the walls and two tables looking out to Gran Paradiso. The restaurant has held a MICHELIN star since 2003; today the Tuscan chef Niccolò De Riu cooks contemporary Italian and Aosta Valley dishes around local ingredients such as char and roe deer, with Pietro leading the dining room. The cheese trolley is part of the ritual.

De Riu also leads Ristorante Bellevue, the main dining room, where the menu follows the seasons. Bar à Fromage, restaurant de montagne, opened in 2002, is the house's alpine kitchen: a fireplace at its heart, butter moulds and dairy tools on the walls, windows onto the meadow and slow-cooked Cogne dishes such as favô and raclette. La Brasserie du Bon Bec, on the main square since 1989, serves fondue, mixed grills and polenta to share. In fair weather lunch moves out to the terrace, and in summer the MICHELIN Guide notes weekly barbecues at La Maison à l'Alpage, an alpine hut reached on foot.

04The cellars

The sommelier Rino Billia looks after around 15,000 bottles – some 1,600 selections across 2,000 labels – from every corner of the wine world, and each year's list follows a theme; for 2025 it was Nebbiolo. Wine Spectator gave the list its Best of Award of Excellence every year from 2017 to 2024, Milano Wine Week named it Italy's best fine-dining list in 2022 and 2024, and Billia received the MICHELIN Guide's Passion for Wine award in 2020. Next door, the cheese cellar ripens alpine cheeses alongside others from Parma and the south, under the eye of Roberto, the maître fromager, who also tends the circular kitchen garden that supplies the chefs with vegetables and herbs.

05Gran Paradiso Springs

The spa covers 1,200 square metres. There are two pools: the main one, at 32°C, is open to children staying at the hotel, while the second, at 34°C with whirlpool beds and jets, is for adults, as is a mineral-salt bath set beneath a large copy of the painting The Fountain of Youth. Around them are citrus, hay, infrared, Finnish and mountain-pine saunas, a bio-sauna, a steam room, a Roman bath, a salt cave walled with blocks of Himalayan salt, an ice grotto where flakes fall into an old christening font, and a Technogym fitness room. Treatments draw on mud with the house's mineral water, honey, milk and wine, and on the organic cosmetics of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Pools and gym are open from 8.00 to 20.00, and access is included in the room rate.

06The valley

Cogne is a village of around 1,500 people, and the park starts at the hotel's door. The Lillaz waterfalls are a ten-minute walk from the hamlet of Lillaz, the Paradisia alpine garden grows some 1,500 varieties of mountain flowers at 1,700 metres, and the village's bobbin lace is a tradition dating back to around 1665. Summer means hiking and cycling through flowering meadows; winter brings downhill and cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and skating.

07Making the most of a stay

Book the Angels' Nest or a Deluxe Prestige room if the glacier view matters most, and reserve Le Petit Bellevue when you book the room – it seats very few and closes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The rate includes snowshoes, mountain bikes and e-bikes, and a shuttle to the ski slopes and the villages around Cogne, so plan your days around them. Leave time for the boutique, Le Marché aux Puces, 100 metres from the main building, which sells the Santa Maria Novella scents used in the spa alongside alpine crafts.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.