Summer in the Italian Alps provides affordable access to the most famous peaksin Europe

You get what you pay for in Switzerland.

Just watch Jungfrau’s ice-capped granite fill half the sky as cowbells waft though a half-timbered mountain village, and it’s obvious why visitors find the country well worth its steep prices.

Unfortunately, the Swiss Alps just became even less accessible to American travelers. Thanks to Congress treating the full faith and credit of the U.S. government like a hostage in a bad Bruce Willis movie, a dollar is currently worth about 3/4 of a Swiss franc. This and other factors make a hostel bed – a plastic-covered twin mattress next to several other (often snoring) people – near the Matterhorn start at $50 per night. Fortunately for alpine enthusiasts planning a trip abroad, it’s easy to sneak onto the roof of Europe from one of the continent’s less expensive countries.

Italy’s Aosta Valley winds through a mountain pass trekked by Roman soldiers, Napoleon’s legions and scores of medieval kings whose castles seem to zip by the train window every 15 minutes. At one end is the Matterhorn and at the other is Mont Blanc. At its center is a Roman city founded when Christ was still alive, and the surrounding peaks could keep even the most industrious hiker exploring for weeks.

I happened into the least-populous region of the country after tearing out the yellowed northern Italy pages of an old guidebook discarded in a guest house. My fiancé and I just wanted to see the Alps before ending a recent European trip without detonating our budget in the process. Regional trains north were surprisingly inexpensive, and from Turin we reached Aosta city in two hours via a train change in Ivrea.

We booked a family-run hotel on a side street in the old city, negotiating a double room for 55 euros per night. An easy walk from the train station, Aosta’s tight city center offers a handful of small hotels among an assortment of restaurants, bars, bakeries and trinket shops. Fondue from the local fontina cheese is worth a try, as are the region’s distinctive wines. We found Ristorante Praetoria a superb place to sample both.

The city also sports a ruined Roman city wall and a partially restored Roman amphitheater. Both are interesting, but the reasons to visit Aosta tower above it. Right next to the train station, a year-round lift shuttles people thousands of feet up to a ski resort with a view of Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in Western Europe. The base of that peak is accessible via an hour-long bus or train trip to Courmayeur. From there visitors with the funds and the inclination can take a series of lifts all way to Chamonix, France, although the abundance of trails and glaciers provide ample motivation to stay in Italy.

Roughly two hours by bus in the other direction from Aosta lies the Matterhorn. A ski area makes much of its Italian side accessible for day hikes and even summer skiing on a glacier just over the ridge in Switzerland. We hoofed it up a ridgeline to the Swiss border from a less expensive lift stop lower on the mountain.

Even at that altitude, I could buy a slice of pie at a ridgeline hotel run jointly by Swiss and Italian alpinists, taking in a view of the Matterhorn’s summit that seemed deceptively close the entire hike. Through dumb luck, we managed to catch a tram back to the base from where we started after it closed. Word to the wise – lifts stop running at different times, and it’s best to check beforehand if you don’t want to walk all the way down at the end of the day.

As they are prone to change, the best resource for bus, train and lift connections for either mountain is the tourist office at the old Roman wall in Aosta. Train travelers splitting town will find all roads lead to Turin, where high-speed lines run regularly to Rome (4.5 to 5 hours, $135), Milan (1 hour, $45), Venice (4 to 5 hours, $125) and international destinations.

Or, if you’ve got more time than euros, it’s easy to cut ticket prices in half by taking slower regional trains. Turin also hosts discount airlines Ryanair (direct flights to London, Paris and Madrid), Windjet (direct to Palermo in Sicily) and Blu-Express.

All that said, if you get what you pay for in the land of Swiss chocolate and yodeling, the same is true for northern Italy, too. Pictures of the Matterhorn from the Italian side obscure the dramatic crook that makes it so recognizable from Switzerland. One of the busiest freight corridors in Europe runs through the Mont Blanc Tunnel and across the Aosta Valley. You can’t hear or see the highway from town, but the city’s status as a shipping hub is probably what keeps it off the Travel Channel.

It’s a place that’s best for travelers willing to pack a lunch and get out of town. The valley rewards those who do with relatively affordable access to the most famous peaks in Europe.