Historic Mountain Routes | Cadorna Line Stage 1 | Ornavasso-Fort of Bara

The well-preserved mule track develops with hairpin bends with a regular slope and with stone walls. Along the way you come across tunnels dug into the rock, trenches, communication trenches and machine gun emplacements. This mountain ridge was the optimal place to control the passage between Lower Ossola and Lakes Maggiore and Mergozzo, in the narrowest point of the plain of the river Toce, defined as the "Stretta di Bara". Once at the Forte di Bara (410 m asl) you can admire the fortified position on several levels and made up of various embankments supported by squared stone walls which should have housed barracks and long-range cannons to protect the trench system of Ornavasso and Migiandone . Cannons and mortars make this visit even more impressive.

A plaque commemorates the Battle of Ornavasso which was fought in October 1944 by the Alpini and the Partisans of the "Valtoce" formation against the Germans in defense of the Partisan Republic of Ossola.