There is a place in the lower Aosta Valley where the mountains close in and leave only a gorge, with a great rock standing in the middle of it. Whoever holds that rock holds the road to the Alpine passes, and it has been fortified since the Middle Ages. Its most famous hour came in 1800, when Bonaparte's army, having crossed the Great St Bernard, found the way barred by the fort's guns and lost precious days getting past it — an episode that cost the stronghold its existence, for it was demolished on Napoleon's orders. This first part of a two-part programme tells that story and reads the site itself: the geology of the rock, the village of Bard huddled at its foot with its medieval houses and stone-paved street, and the strategic logic that has made this narrow passage a place of arms for two thousand years. Filmed in 4K with extensive aerial coverage.
