Footprints on the Battlefield Trails of Monte Cassino

The hiking on the Cavendish Road is the perfect starting point to follow the footprints of the soldiers, by the steepest side of Monte Cassino battlefield. This ancient mule track, already used by the locals to walk uphill to Montecassino before the war, was an incredible challenge performed by the Allied military engineers to allow their tanks to climb this steep slopes to outflank and conquered the German defenses at the top of the hills of Monte Cassino to break the Gustav Line.

Albaneta Farm, Bialecki Tank.

Snake Head Ridge, Doctor House.

The Impregnable Hill 593, Polish Cemetery (on request)

The Abbey of Montecassino is one of the most known Abbeys in the world. In 529 Saint Benedict chose this mountain to build a monastery that would host him and those monks following him on the way from Subiaco. Paganism was still present here, but he managed to turn the place into a well-structured Christian monastery where everybody could have the dignity they deserved through praying and working. Within the centuries the Abbey has met magnificence and destruction many times, and has always come out of its ruins stronger. In 577 Langobards destroyed it, then Saracens in 887. In 1349 a violent earthquake occurred and in February 1944 a bombardment almost flatted it.