Articolo disponibile anche in: Italian
There are those who say they were built by German soldiers during WWll. Others insist that they were built earlier, in the years of the “colonies” organized by the Fascists.
These roads are surely fascinating. They can be found in the middle of the woods that lead from the via Grevigiana to shortly before Mercatale.
It seems that along the banks of the Greve river, the German army built a logistics base, where bread ovens, warehouses and an inﬁrmary were in function. They did this to impose a line of resistance against the advancement of the Allied troops that were in the area.
The Germans created these roads using materials they had found in the area: bricks made in the town of Ferrone, which later became world-famous for their resistance to the elements.
As a witness to this, a large part of these roads are still there, more or less unknown, but a tangible witness to that historic period. We should probably protect these bits of history.
Although they aren’t major works nor have artistic value, they could still be a warning to the younger generation, a snapshot for the collective memory. Because, once in a while, as witnessed in current events, we seem to forget that WWll is not so far in the past.