Passo della Futa

A pass between Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, where very strong winds blow and snowstorms rage, so much so that, to protect travellers, the Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold I had a long wall erected, which still exists today. But the Futa Pass is also the place where the Germans, in 1944, built forts with gun turrets, artillery positions, shelters, observation posts, an anti-tank ditch and minefields. And it is where the Germans themselves were buried: here isthe largest of the twelve German military cemeteries in Italy, where some 33,000 bodies were buried.