The highest guardian: Monte/Mollinary fortress.

Hey guys,
here i will tell you about Mollinary fortress: it is another fragment of history in the area where i live. It's almost unknown but the truth is that it has been the witness of a very important battle of World War II. Hope you enjoy to discover the secrets of these ruins ;)

Everybody in the southern area of Garda Lake by the side of Verona's province can see it, a lonely fortress on the easter side of Adige Valley. Although it seems difficult and tiring to reach it is not so, because it's enough to reach the mountain town called Monte from Sant'Ambrogio di Valpolicella and then to park over the last houses in the west. The landscape from Monte is amazing!!!

(Landscape from Monte)

You have to walk less than ten minutes and Mollinary fortress will appear in front of you. It's very easy to enter here and visit it, but it's a good thing to be carefull to the deep holes on the ground.

This building in a state of abandonment extends over three levels and from its gigantic terraces you can see Lake Garda, Mount Baldo and the other fortresses: Wohlgemuth and San Marco.

(The white building on the hill at the left is Wohlgemuth fortress and on the hill at the right you can see San Marco fortress [ https://steemit.com/italy/@vvonderlander/a-little-piece-of-unknown-italy-san-marco ])

It is a vaguely disturbing place, with walls and floors devastated by explosions, dark corners and ruins that forms semi-artificial caves.
Not to mention the flooded underground, where a scary silence reigns, punctuated only by the drops that fall into the water. I preferred to don't photograph it, it didn't seem a good idea to present you a completely dark photo. ;)

Here's a series of photos of the inner part.

The contrast between the underground levels, dark and disturbing, with the highest, majestic and enlightened, is such that it seems to pass from hell to heaven and vice versa.

About the story of this place, it begins in 1849 when the construction of the fortress began for the will of the austrian field marshall Radetzky. In the same period the construction of its brothers also began, namely the fortress Wohlgemuth and the fortress Hlawaty (Ceraino). Work ended in 1852: the austrian project for the protection of its borders was completed.

In 1866 with the end of the Italian wars of independence the fortress passed into the hands of the Royal Italian army, which in 1884 modernized it and oriented the artillery from south to north. From here it took the name of Monte fortress.

In the following years it had no particular role, but it is worth remembering that in 1867 the Brenner railway was inaugurated in the valley below the fortress. Crossing the Brenner Pass the railway joined Bolzano and Innsbruck.

With the advent of Fascism and Nazism in the 1930s, the Brenner roads and railway lines became the most important means of communication between the two totalitarian regimes: it is for this reason that during World War II the Allies decided that destroy it was essential to win the war.

From 1943 onwards the Allies struck these areas hard to damage the supply system for German troops in Italy, bombarding strategic points but also cities as Trento and Bolzano.
It is in this scenario that the Mollinary fortress returns to the spotlight. Although the local inhabitants claim that the fort accidentally exploded in 1945 due to gunpowder abandoned by German soldiers on the run, there is documented evidence that the fort was gutted by the bombs of some american B-52s during the Brenner battle. In fact from 10 December 1944 the aforementioned aircraft tried to provoke two landslides near the fort in order to destroy the railway line below.

Since the war ended, it has been abandoned and it is said that over the years it has been used for satanic rituals. Perhaps the disturbing atmosphere of the place is not so casual.