Chiusaforte, Italian Alps

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I arrived in Chiusaforte on the evening of 6 June 2013 when this was filmed. I was in transit between Sicily and Ukraine and this seemed a good place to stop the night. I think that transiting through this narrow valley is something people have been doing for a very long time as it was probably on the site of a Roman Road from Italy to the Noricum province.

Many years later, Ulric von Eppenstein, Patriarch of Aquileia (1086-1121) had a similar idea. He had a fortress erected to charge tolls to travellers crossing the Alps. The Patriarchs had to defend their territory against the claims raised by the Counts of Görz and the Dukes of Carinthia, until in 1420 the Republic of Venice conquered the Fella Valley up to Pontebba and incorporated it into the Domini di Terraferma.

Annexed by the Habsburg Monarchy as a result of the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio it was part of the Austrian Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia from 1815, until it fell with Venetia to the newly established Kingdom of Italy according to the 1866 Treaty of Vienna.

During WW1 the village was captured by the Austrians following the Italian collapse at Caporetto. I give an analysis of the fighting in that war during my walk around the village.

The population today is around 800 people - after WW1 it was around 3,000 people. You can see quite a lot of abandoned housing in this film, some of which is clearly military.

Chiusaforte is located about 90 kilometres northwest of Trieste and about 40 km north of Udine, as you may have noticed if you have been following my journey. Chiusaforte is situated in the Canal del Ferro valley of the Fella River, running between the Carnic and Julian Alps to its confluence with the Tagliamento.

Chiusaforte borders the following municipalities: Dogna, Malborghetto Valbruna, Moggio Udinese, Bovec (Slovenia), Resia, Resiutta, Tarvisio.

The Fella Valley is the site of Pontebbana railway line from Udine to Tarvisio and the Austrian border. It is also traversed by the parallel Italian Autostrada A23 highway from Palmanova to Tarvisio which you can see in the distance in this film.

My channel on you tube :    / alanheath   is very prolific. I have produced over 2,500 original films.

My big interest in life is travel and history but I have also placed films on other subjects. For those that want to know more, I have groups on facebook related to motorhome travelling, history and packaging.

Please feel free to ask questions in the public area or to comment on things you disagree with. Sometimes there are mistakes because I speak without preparation. If I see the mistakes myself, I make this clear in the text. Please also leave a star rating!

I am very fortunate that I can spend a large part of my life travelling, thanks to the business I chose to run which allows me to do this. There are a number of films here on the packaging industry. This is because I am the publisher of Central and Eastern European Packaging -- http://www.ceepackaging.com - the international platform for the packaging industry in this region focusing on the latest innovations, trends, design, branding, legislation and environmental issues with in-depth profiles of major industry achievers.

Most people may think packaging pretty boring but it possibly effects your life more than you really imagine!

Central and Eastern European Packaging examines the packaging industry throughout this region, but in particular in the largest regional economies which are Russia, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Austria. That is not to say that the other countries are forgotten, they are not, but obviously there is less going on. However the fact that there are so many travel related films here is not from holidays but from business trips attending trade fairs around the region. Every packaging trade fair is a new excuse to make another film!