Friday 11th July 2014
During the Cold War Austria was not a
member of NATO, and so decided to mount a defence against the red menace
lurking over the border in sleepy old Slovenia. This region, the Julian
Alps, is no stranger to long and bloody fighting as we will see in the
Kobarid entry later on in the blog.
So the Austrians
built a network of tunnels, bunkers and gun emplacements on the Würzen
pass during the Cold War to protect one of the main routes into Southern
Austria from what was then communist Yugoslavia.
Now it
is an open air museum with access to all the bunkers and with much of
the original ordnance still in place. It is easy to find as a rather battered and rusting old tank is parked up on the verge near the entrance.
Inside there are two British- made
Centurion tanks and a number of tank turrets, along with big and small
shell and belt-fed guns hiding in the trees amid some very impressive fortifications.
You can wander around at will, stooping into bunker entran…
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