Ancient, Traditional Popular Sports of Aosta Valley

Locals of Aosta Valley call the sports of local popular tradition "Esports de noutra terra", which have been passed down over the centuries from generation to generation.

The various sports are locally known as fiolet, rebatta, tsan and palet and are traditional of Valle d’Aosta. Fiolet is typical of the area of Mont Blanc, the valley of Gran San Bernardo and the surroundings of Aosta, rebatta is popular around the south of Aosta and Valpelline, while tsan is more diffused in the lower-middle areas of the Aosta Valley (on the border of Piedmont).

They are all team sports of humble origins as all that is necessary is a lawn area, wooden sticks, larger rocks for lances and smaller, rounder stones to use as balls. Each Sunday, men and boys would meet to challenge the teams of nearby towns. They would play dressed in jackets, ties and hats and between matches the teams would stop for snacks and wine.

Fiolet and rebatta are quite similar; both games are a challenge of two teams each with five players. Each player has a certain number of lances and by hitting a ball covered with nails with a wooden stick, he is supposed to hurl it in the air and hit it again as far away as possible. The team which manages to hit the ball as far away as possible wins.

Tsan, its name deriving from a circle marked from the earth where the player positions himself and archaically considered a magic place linked to Celtic-Piedmont cults, is more similar to baseball as both teams alternate batting against the opposite team.

Palet is a type of bowling game, where the traditional round ball is substituted with a metallic cone.

Championships take place in spring and autumn, because traditionally summers were spent in the mountains and also because they didn’t want to spoil the grass during haymaking. Still today you can often witness the determined teams challenge practising these ancient sports.