Long before tunnels, crossing the Alps meant walking, and the Great St Bernard was one of the great gateways between northern Europe and Italy. Roman troops, medieval merchants, pilgrims on the road to Rome and, later, Napoleon's soldiers all came this way. Saint-Rhémy is the last settlement before the final climb: a compact village of stone houses and slate roofs, set among pastures that turn brown early and are covered in snow for a long half of the year. The people here lived from the pass — guiding, sheltering, carrying — and from stock-raising, from which comes the cured ham matured in mountain air that has made the village's name well beyond the valley. Filmed in 4K across the seasons and from the air, the programme follows the ancient route upwards and portrays a community whose whole existence has been organised around a threshold in the mountains.
