Guide to toll costs from Aosta to Courmayeur

We were in Turin and wanted to drive to Courmayeur. The distances are short, but the costs are... unique.

From Turin to Courmayeur, it's about 115 km. You can drive it in 1 hour and 30 minutes on the A5. On paper, it seems easy: take the highway, head towards the mountains, and in under two hours, you're at Mont Blanc with skis ready.

Then you reach Valle d'Aosta and realize there's a detail nobody mentioned: you're about to drive on Italy's most expensive highway stretch.

The critical point is the Raccordo Autostradale Valle d'Aosta (RAV), managed by Rav SpA, a separate company from the regular A5 Turin-Aosta. Here, the numbers get crazy:

Aosta East - Aosta West: 12 km = 11.00 euros

You read that right. Twelve kilometers cost eleven euros. That's basically 90 cents per kilometer. Less than 8 minutes of travel costing you 1.40 euros per minute.

After the ring road, the stretch towards Courmayeur seems almost reasonable: 27 cents per kilometer. It's a series of ten tunnels designed to reduce environmental impact in a narrow valley dotted with villages.

Let's do some real math. How much do you spend round trip, including fuel? It's about 100 euros for tolls and fuel. Not cheap for a weekend, but it's the cost of convenience if you want to bring skis, luggage, and have the freedom to move without relying on train or bus schedules.

The Alternative: The SS26 Highway

If tolls seem too much, there's the SS26 from Aosta to Courmayeur. It's free and goes through all the valley towns: Sarre with its castle, Saint-Pierre, Villeneuve, La Salle with vineyards, Morgex known for Prié Blanc wine, Pré-Saint-Didier with its thermal baths.

It's scenic, relaxing, perfect for enjoying the trip. But it's also slower and winding. In winter, with snow and ice, the highway is the safer and faster choice.

The SS26 saves you about 20 euros in tolls (just the Aosta Valley part), but it costs you 30-40 extra minutes. If you're leaving from Turin for a weekend and want to hit the slopes early Saturday, you'll probably choose the highway. But if you leave Friday afternoon without rushing and want to enjoy the scenery, the SS26 is a nice alternative.

In fact, we took that alternative! We had all Friday afternoon ahead, no rush to arrive, and the idea of crossing the valley calmly instead of diving into one tunnel after another seemed more sensible.

And it was the right choice. We passed through villages we wouldn't have seen otherwise: we stopped in Sarre for a photo of the castle, and we took a break in Morgex 😎