At Passo Valparola, between Cortina d’Ampezzo and Alta Badia, the Tre Sassi Museum of the Great War occupies the spaces of an Austro-Hungarian fort built between 1897 and 1901 to control an important strategic access to Val Badia at a time of growing tension with the Kingdom of Italy.
Its military function, however, was short-lived after it was hit by Italian artillery and quickly abandoned following the outbreak of the First World War. Only thanks to a restoration project in the early 2000s was it returned to the public as a museum, preserving all the marks of its past. Today the Tre Sassi Museum contains over two thousand artifacts, including war materials and everyday objects, which document the living conditions of soldiers on the Dolomite front.
The exhibition focuses particularly on the human experience, offering a direct insight into the everyday dimension of war, but does not end within the fort as the trenches and positions still visible outside also make the landscape an integral part of the story, showing how the territory influenced the dynamics of the conflict.
