Chiusa di Rio di Pusteria / Mühlbacher Klause

The Chiusa di Rio is a solid system of river stone walls, guarded by two circular towers, which seals the wooded ridge that descends towards the north bank of the Rienza, between Rio di Pusteria and Vandoies, until it touches the cycle path and State Road 49 that run along the river. It's hard not to be left open-mouthed when you suddenly find yourself in front of it while cycling or driving, especially towards evening, when the walls and towers are theatrically illuminated. The Chiusa was built in the late 15th century by Sigismund of Austria as a fortress and at the same time a customs house on the border between the counties of Tyrol and Gorizia, replacing an older structure located a few hundred metres to the west. At the time, the walls, with their gates, completely barred the way as a military defence of the border and also to levy duties and taxes on merchant traffic: Sigismund, not surprisingly, was nicknamed "il Danaroso" ("the wealthy man"). The Chiusa then also became a hunting lodge, for the Tyrolean counts and their guests, and it seems that even the Emperor Maximilian I loved to stay in one of the two towers during his travels. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, the structure decayed, until it was used as a kind of stone quarry, and was recovered and reused for defensive purposes during the Second World War, to be finally restored at the end of the last century.