Fort Montecchio Nord is a short distance north of the Piona Abbey and also in the town of Colico. It is also on Lake Como. This fort was built between 1911 and 1914. It was built to control the roads in the event that the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Germans violated Swiss neutrality and invaded Italy through this valley from the north. Switzerland and northern Italy still talk a lot about World War One, but not WW II.

This fort is the only Italian military fort of the First World War that has been kept with its original armament intact and it is one of the best preserved forts in Europe. It was built into the rock and has extremely thick walls, lots of tunnels, communications galore, water systems, electrical systems, ventilation systems, and more. It held 100 men for WW I and 200 men for WW II, but saw next to no fighting in either war.

The fort is quite a large complex and has an explosives storage room that is almost 200 feet deep. We walked all through the fort.

The next photo was a heated bunk room that accommodated 40 soldiers. It positioned them to get to guns and positions very quickly. Almost all movement within the fort was underground.

This next curved tunnel connected troops and gun positions and was well underground and 460 feet long.

They have four huge French cannons in rotatable positions under armored domes. They are model Schneider 149 mm guns with a range of 8.7 miles. We got to climb the ladder up into one of the gun rooms from below, and a fort guide operated it for us to see how it moved up and down. It still works perfectly, though they aren't expecting an attack.

We also climbed up to the guns on the top for a view of the enemy's anticipated invasion paths (to the right). Lake Como is behind the guns.