2015: The Inauguration of a Cable Car System in Italy

June 23, 2015

More than three weeks after it first went into operation, the cable car system Skyway Monte Bianco within northwestern Italy’s Autonomous Region of Aosta Valley was formally inaugurated. This system serves as a link between its base station in the frazione (subdivision) of Entrèves in the town and comune of Courmayeur; and the summit station on a high-level ridge of Pointe Helbronner, a mountain that is part of the alpine mountain range called Monte Bianco (Mont Blanc) massif and situated on the watershed between Italy and France.

The respective altitudes of these stations are 4,265 feet (1,300 meters) and 11,371 feet (3,466 meters). An intermediate station, at an altitude of 7,129 feet (2,173 meters), is likewise located on Pointe Helbronner.

The Skyway Monte Bianco was designed by architect Carlo Cillara Rossi (born in 1953). Construction on this mountain transportation infrastructure was initiated in 2011. Matteo Renzi (born in 1975), Italy’s prime minister from 2014 to 2016, officiated at the opening ceremonies for the Skyway Monte Bianco. As part of the inaugural festivities at the system’s summit station, he was presented with a golden ice axe by Augusto Rollandin (1949-2024), the president of Aosta Valley from 1984 to 1990 and again between 2008 and 2017.

The Skyway Monte Bianco has a total line length of approximately 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) and a vertical interval – the difference in elevation between two fixed points – of 7,106 feet (2,166 meters) altogether. A 2025 post on the blog Telemark Traveller described a ride on one of the Skyway Monte Bianco’s cable cars. “The cable car itself is more like a large gondola with a rotating cabin that allows a 360-degree [400-gradian] panoramic vista as you gently ascend the metal ropes,” this post noted. “The ride is smooth and very scenic.”

Along with being highlighted within the blogosphere, the Skyway Monte Bianco also made its way onto the big screen when one of this system’s cable cars was featured in the 2017 action-comedy film Kingsman: The Golden Circle.     

Photo Credit: Stefano Venturini (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on the Skyway Monte Bianco, please check out https://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/skyway-monte-bianco-mountain-station/view/google/

A video about this cable car system can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V055PF5enZA