Top 19 Caves around Rovereto

During the First World War, the Selletta Comando was a particularly critical and delicate point of the Italian defense line: its collapse could have allowed the Austro-Hungarian army to break through the Italian defenses. The area was subjected to incessant bombardments by imperial artillery, to the point that it was impossible to keep it stably occupied by troops: the soldiers took shelter in the numerous caves or in the masonry barracks built in more sheltered positions. On the Italian side, just behind the Selletta, was the Sector Command, housed in a large cave reinforced with reinforced concrete. A long trench came from Cima Palon and continued along the ridge towards Corno del Pasubio and Nodo d’Aquila, forming a frontline barrier. The position was also effectively defended by the crossfire of light artillery and machine guns positioned on both the Palon and the Corno.

The strategic position of Corno Battisti was the source of bloody battles for its possession during the Great War. To this end, it was equipped with numerous tunnels dug into the rock, with three separate entrances and numerous firing positions. The tunnels can be accessed with great caution, with a torch and preferably a via ferrata kit. Currently (2025), the upper entrance is closed.

World War II observation point

Il Corno Battisti, an isolated rocky spur of the Pasubio Group, sheer above Vallarsa, offers a spectacular panorama of the long valley and the surrounding mountains: Pasubio, Sengio Alto, Carega, Monte Zugna. Precisely because of its strategic position, it was fiercely contested during the First World War: the possibility of controlling all troop and supply movements in the valley from above made the Corno a crucial point to occupy and defend at all costs... it was indeed nicknamed 'the eye of the Pasubio' or 'the spy of Vallarsa'. At the beginning of the conflict, it was a garrison of the Italian army, but with the Strafexpedition in 1916, it was occupied by the Austro-Hungarians. The Italians, unable to recapture it, dug a mine gallery from below to pierce the Corno and blow up the summit; the imperialists in turn dug a counter-mine gallery from above. Everything was ready for detonation, but a daring raid by a few commandos allowed the summit to be recaptured by the Royal Army, which held it until the end of the war. In 1916, near the summit, the Austro-Hungarians captured the irredentists Cesare Battisti and Fabio Filzi, who were immediately taken to Trento and hanged at the Castello del Buonconsiglio as traitors: for this reason, the summit, known at the time as 'Corno della Vallarsa', was renamed 'Corno Battisti' after the war. The Austro-Hungarian observatory survives on the summit. The bowels of the Corno, on the other hand, are excavated by a surprising labyrinth of dark and damp tunnels with steep steps: they are passable, but to reach them from the summit, one must go around the spur following a narrow, steep path; furthermore, to complete the loop of the tunnels, one must face a short, equipped and exposed section, and descend a metal ladder of about fifteen meters which is by no means trivial (EE). https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Corno_Battisti https://www.esercito.difesa.it/storia/pagine/monte-corno.aspx

The Road of Heroes owes its name to the twelve plaques affixed along it in honor of the twelve gold medals for military valor who fought on Pasubio during the Great War. The twelve people remembered are: Lieutenant Cesare Battisti, Captain Aldo Beltricco, Bersagliere Torquato Cardelli, Lieutenant Umberto Cerboni, Major Felice Chiarle, Second Lieutenant Fabio Filzi, Colonel Antonio Gioppi, Second Lieutenant Giordano Ottolini, Major Mario Rossani , Colonel Eduardo Suarez, Second Lieutenant Ferdinando Urli, Lieutenant Carlo Sabatini.

A stretch of road on the Pasubio massif, in the Vicenza Pre-Alps, the Strada degli Eroi was built following the First World War to provide the summit area of the mountain with a safe access route. The actual Road of Heroes is the approximately two kilometer long stretch that connects the Giuseppe d'Havet Gallery to the Achille Papa refuge: this stretch is in a certain sense the appetizer.

Located along the itinerary of the 5 cemeteries, starting from Camporovere

Oolite stone quarries dug in the Vastrè hills. The extracted stone, called "statuary stone", was used above all for portals, fountains and statues as it is easily workable. The stone extracted from the quarries was used to create statues that adorn the Taro bridge in Parma, the fountain in Piazza Duomo in Trento, the statues that adorn the Prato della Valle in Padua, some statues found in the Collegiate Church of Arco and the statue of Moses located in the square of Arco. I advise you to enter the quarries and tackle the route inside. The location is truly very suggestive and I would say unique. The extraction planes are inclined about 30° towards the west and in the middle there are rock columns which were used to prevent the roof from collapsing.