Top 17 Caves around Folgaria

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.

Austro-Hungarian artillery emplacement from World War I, dug into the rock. With the great Spring Offensive of 1916—nicknamed the 'Strafexpedition,' or Punitive Expedition—the Imperial Army aimed to break through the Italian barrier and invade the Po Valley through the valleys of the Vicenza Prealps. Obviously, the first prerequisite for this plan to be feasible was to dominate the surrounding peaks that controlled the access routes below, driving out the enemy. On May 21, 1916, Austro-Hungarian troops passed through an empty and desolate Tonezza: the inhabitants, faced with imminent danger, had quickly abandoned the town and its surrounding countryside to take refuge in the plains, facing exile lasting only a few weeks, but which lasted until the end of the conflict due to the escalation of hostilities. The Italian army, in disadvantaged and indefensible positions, had retreated, barricading itself on Mount Cimone, the last and indispensable bastion of resistance. To defend and maintain the positions they had conquered on the Tonezza Plateau, the Austro-Hungarian units built trenches, walkways, cave shelters, and artillery emplacements everywhere, like this fort: dug into a natural rock formation, it housed a 105 mm gun to dominate the Rio Freddo Valley below. The trees, now dense, were gone over a hundred years ago, having been felled by soldiers who needed a clear line of sight. Not far away, continuing along the steep path that descends to the valley toward the climbing wall, there is a second fort, dug into a cave, which housed another 105 mm gun.

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