21 Cycling Climbs Part Two - Flipbook - Page 210
Passo Pordoi
The White War is the name given to the fighting
in the high-altitude Alpine sector of the Italian
front during the First World War, principally in the
Dolomites.
The front stretched from Bovec in Slovenia to
the top of the Stelvio Pass, around 400 km. in
length. More than two-thirds of this conflict zone
lies at an altitude above 2,000m.
The Passo Pordoi, together with all the other
passes of the Dolomites, was fiercely contested.
On the eastern slopes of the Passo Pordoi,
the Austria-Hungarian/German war memorial
looks across to the Marmolada Glacier, where
Austrian soldiers built quarters in glacier tunnels,
forming an “ice city”.
The only battles being fought out on the Passo
Pordoi today are between the riders of the
Maratona dles Dolomites,
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