So, hands up if you've heard of a place called Livigno?
With the weather less-than-optimal for climbing, we decided to take the scenic route from Basel to Bolzano - and this took us through the tiny valley of Livigno, squished up against Switzerland, right at the top of Italy. The wiki page describes a history of poverty, smuggling and inaccessibility during the winter months, and even now there are only three roads which head into the region (and one is a long, narrow tunnel).
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We were pleasantly surprised to find out on arrival that Livigno has no goods tax. NONE! In fact it has been exempt from paying a variety of taxes since the Middle Ages.
So everything is much cheaper ... we left the valley the proud owners of new Grivel crampons and with a full tank of premium diesel - bought for under a Euro a litre! Bargain!
With the weather less-than-optimal for climbing, we decided to take the scenic route from Basel to Bolzano - and this took us through the tiny valley of Livigno, squished up against Switzerland, right at the top of Italy. The wiki page describes a history of poverty, smuggling and inaccessibility during the winter months, and even now there are only three roads which head into the region (and one is a long, narrow tunnel).
View Larger Map
We were pleasantly surprised to find out on arrival that Livigno has no goods tax. NONE! In fact it has been exempt from paying a variety of taxes since the Middle Ages.
So everything is much cheaper ... we left the valley the proud owners of new Grivel crampons and with a full tank of premium diesel - bought for under a Euro a litre! Bargain!
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