The former border with Italy is now an area of wonderful alpine routes and remains of military facilities.
After World War I, Italy temporarily acquired the territory of Slovenian Primorska with the Treaty of Rapallo, which was concluded in 1920. The Rapallo Border was a border between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes according to the mutual agreement of superpowers in 1920 in the Italian town of Rapallo. Despite promises about respecting national rights, there was a fast decline in the economic, cultural and political life of Slovenes between the two wars. After World War II Primorska was finally returned to the homeland.
Cultural-Historical Remains of the Rapallo Border
Italian units marked the border with boundary markers. In the period before World War II they built roads, watchtowers, barracks, bunkers and other forts in Primorska.
Today, many facilities, which were built at the time of the Rapallo border, have already been overgrown by vegetation, but some of them are still visible, renovated, and worth seeing:
- The Mangart Road, rearranged today, the highest lying mountain road in Slovenia;
- The route from Zadnjica to Triglav;
- The route from Lepena to Lake Krn;
- The Za Otoki forts;
- The shelter on Kup;
- The boundary marker on top of Bača;
- The Možič barracks,
- The iron bunker on Lajnar,
- The Caposaldo shelter on Petrovo Brdo,
- The Lajnar barracks,
- The fort on top of Bača.
There are shorter and longer guided trips at the Rapallo border.
