There was a time when every village in the Aosta Valley, an Italian Alpine region bordering France and Switzerland, had a community oven used by the population to bake bread once a year, before Christmas.

In the past, owning a private oven was a privilege for the few, as it was too expensive to fire it up every time there was a need for baking.

For this reason, the community ovens in each village played a crucial role in the sustenance of the entire population.

As technology moved on, that custom died out.

But since 2015, a festival in the municipality of Brusson has revived that lost custom.

The Lo Pan Ner festival is dedicated to black rye bread, typical of the Aosta Valley.

Of course, in 2025 the villagers don't rely on this custom to supply their bread.

This is now about bringing communities together.

Age-old traditions are helping these places survive modern pressures.

“A major challenge for mountain communities is depopulation and demographic decline, which leads to a small number of people living in each village. Therefore, these opportunities are crucial because they truly act as a glue. They help hold together communities that would otherwise risk falling apart,” explains Roberta Esposito, councillor for tourism, culture and education of the Municipality of Brusson.

The smell of freshly baked bread entices villagers to celebrate the day outside the bakery.

And it's not just this village.

The trend has caught on in other Alpine settlements.

“In this tenth edition (of Lo Pan Ner), 65 community ovens from communities and villages in the Aosta Valley participated in the initiative, involving approximately 800 volunteers. These volunteers are passionate and passionate about sharing this precious aspect of our intangible culture, our heritage,” says Caterina Pizzato, a BREL official (Bureau Regional Ethnologie et Linguistique / Regional Office for Ethnology and Linguistics).

And so, even just for one day a year, the oven chimneys smoke again, the scent of bread envelops the streets, and the Alpine villages come back to life.

AP video shot by Niccolò Lupone