Where to see it today

Sentences without a label are documented facts; the others are marked "probable" or "uncertain".

Of the mines of Traversella and Brosso there remain the old treatment plant, now a museum, a stretch of tunnel with the shaft and the engine room, the Strada delle Vote with its kilns and the mineralogical museum of Brosso. This page says, place by place, what can be seen and where to look for practical information.

The Museo della Miniera di Traversella

The museum is housed in the crushing silo, the plant that FIAT built around 1940 probable: on the ceiling of a room on the top floor are the remains of two hoppers that carried the ore to the crusher. At the entrance stand two old hanging trucks that carried the ore from the mine to the crushers and the mills. The route includes a collection of minerals, the miners' equipment and access to part of the tunnels. Among the exhibits are also the four Balma Bianca coins, on display since August 2013.

The renewed museum was opened on 20 September 2025 probable, with a lift, an inclined platform, tactile routes and a multimedia station probable. It is free of architectural barriers and offers visual guides in sign language and support for the visually impaired; audio guides and guides in LIS, Italian Sign Language, can be reached with a QR code. It is run by the volunteers of the Gruppo Mineralogico Valchiusella, the mineral club of the Chiusella valley. Turismo Torino writes that more than 300 mineral specimens are on display; in 2017 Costa counted almost 800 uncertain.

Sources: Costa et al. 2019, pp. 13, 18; Museo della Miniera website, «Home», «Il Museo» and «Piazzale Bracco Giorgio D»; Giornale La Voce, 20 September 2025; Turismo Torino, online page; ISPRA, page on the Traversella museum; Barello, Rubat Borel 2019, p. 176; websites consulted on 15 and 16 October 2026

The tunnel, the shaft and the engine room

On the guided tour you go into the Bracco Giorgio D tunnel, open to the public for tourism: you walk about 120 metres of concrete tunnel as far as the lifts and see the mine shaft and the engine room. The shaft, 114 metres deep, was dug in the 1950s to link the yard at 890 metres with three levels further down, according to the museum's website probable; Beratto writes that it links the four lower levels. The two counts agree if level 890 of the yard is counted too: below it are 860, 826 and 778. The educational visits also take in the outdoor areas of the complex, the mining Geopark.

Costa and colleagues proposed three levels of visit to the mine: a basic one for families, in the Anglosarda tunnel and in the buildings, one for scholars in the oldest tunnels and one for trained cavers, with guides. In the text written in 2017 the tunnels were open only with strict restrictions.

Sources: Turismo Torino, online page; Museo della Miniera website, «Home» and «Piazzale Bracco Giorgio D»; Beratto (thesis), pp. 31, 34; Costa et al. 2019, pp. 5, 19; websites consulted on 15 and 16 October 2026

Opening hours and tickets, read on 15 and 16 October 2026

According to the Turismo Torino page, read on 15 October 2026, in 2026 the museum was open on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 May to 27 September, from 2 to 6 pm; on that date the opening period had already ended. The museum's website, read on 16 October 2026, says that from 28 September 2026 to 30 April 2027 the museum can be visited every day, but only by booking, for groups. The audio guide speaks in general of opening from May to September at weekends and all year round for groups, with educational activities for schools probable.

On the same dates full tickets cost 4 euros for the museum only, 8 euros for the tunnel only and 10 euros for museum and tunnel. For children aged 5 to 12 the reduced ticket was 2 euros for the museum only, 5 euros for the tunnel and 6 euros for museum and tunnel. The Turismo Torino page does not give the length of the visit or how to book: before setting off it is worth checking the website of the Museo della Miniera di Traversella.

Sources: Turismo Torino, museum page, consulted on 15 October 2026; Museo della Miniera website, «Home» and «Il comprensorio minerario», consulted on 16 October 2026

Brosso and the Strada delle Vote

The Mineralogical Museum of Brosso is in piazza Sclopis. According to the ISPRA page, read on 15 October 2026, the archaeological trail along the Assa and the exhibition can be visited on the days before holidays and on holidays in October and November and in March and April. An old page of the ecomuseum said the museum was open every day by booking, with free admission: these data have not been checked again uncertain.

The Strada delle Vote starts from an information point in the village and is a mule track that runs along the left bank of the Assa as far as Calea probable. Along the route you can still see roasting kilns, washing pools, forges and mechanical stamps probable; the path reaches the Sclopis basin probable. Chiappino also mentions millstones and stone tanks, the wheels of the trip-hammers, the stables for the mules, the Sclopis villa and the Bore vitriol works probable; a page of the ecomuseum names as stops the little church of San Rocco and a chapel where the dead were watched over probable. The tunnels, on the other hand, are mostly closed: in 1996, after the entrances had been mined and brought down several times, of the roughly 80 entrances about ten were still usable, reopened by cavers and mineral hunters.

Sources: ISPRA, page on the Mineralogical Museum of Brosso, consulted on 15 October 2026; OpenStreetMap; FAI, Miniere di Brosso e Strada delle Vote, consulted on 15 October 2026; inalto.org, online page; Chiappino 2010, p. 29; Chiappino 1996, p. 55; pages of the Brosso ecomuseum, «L'itinerario», and of the Provincia di Torino, «Museo Mineralogico Brosso»

The geosite and the rocks to see

Since 2 February 2026 the "Complesso estrattivo del Plutone di Traversella", the mining complex of the Traversella pluton, has been in the Region's Register of geosites, as of national interest. Its record includes the Traversella-Brosso pluton and its contact aureole and describes a trail linking the older mining complex of Brosso to the more recent one of Traversella, passing by the diorite quarries of Vico. No geosite is devoted to the Brosso mines.

The rocks can be seen even without going into a tunnel. At the Pian del Gallo the rocks transformed by the heat of the magma and the skarns can be seen on the surface; the best exposures of the diorite are in the old and working quarries near Traversella and Vico Canavese. An old page of the ecomuseum describes an educational trail of the geopark, 3 kilometres long, up to 1,000 metres, with the powder store and the paved mule track; the information on its management is out of date probable.

Sources: regional decision of 2 February 2026 no. 148, p. 5; Geoportale dei Geositi del Piemonte, record consulted on 15 October 2026; Costa et al. 2019, p. 7; Traversella ecomuseum page, «Il geoparco»

Before setting off

The old tunnels are dangerous. Munari points out that at Traversella there are no gases such as firedamp, but that the maze of undocumented old tunnels and the voids filled with waste can collapse: the collapses, called "bollimenti" in the miners' jargon, can still be seen from outside probable. In 2001-2002 no tunnel could be walked through from end to end. Research work in the tunnels has its rules too: for the 2026 permit an agreement with the Municipality and up-to-date safety documents are needed.

The position of the Balma Bianca coin mine is not shown, to protect the site: it may be kept confidential, and for information you can contact the Museo della Miniera di Traversella.

Sources: Munari 2019, p. 104; Beratto (thesis), p. 60; Barello 2022, slide 2; regional decision of 13 January 2026 no. 6, p. 3