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Trekking Ancient Borders
1753.
Empress Maria Theresa sat atop the Habsburg Throne (the only woman to ever rule that empire alone) and along with the Duke of Venice, signed a treaty which finally ended a long standing border dispute between the two powers in the Tyrol region.
Its boundary was delineated by stone markers, conveniently carved with that same year (1753) in which the border was set.
Centuries later, the stones remain, some hidden, all weathered, whilst the borders themselves, and indeed the kingdoms that set them, have long since faded into history.
Today, in this remote Italian region, the vestiges of this ancient frontier have been rediscovered, and it’s along this boundary that we walk parts the 1753 Trail.
I’m not talking a huge, multi-day commitment, although you could cobble together a pretty special itinerary once all parts of this long-distance trail, leading from the Carnic main ridge to the shores of Lake Garda, are finished.
For us, 1753 was a day walk.
A walk that whilst only 5 or 6 hours actually on our feet, took us back through several hundred years of modern, often violent history, through a landscape, forged over a millennia.
So there we were, day 9 of our Dolomite Explorer, in Sesto (or Sexten if you prefer), ahead lay our walk along this newly minted trail.
Our bellies full (breakfast is one of the three most important meals of the day I’ll have you know), the skies patchy, and the scenery stunning.
To be honest, to say much, would be to say too much.
The images indeed speak for themselves.
Even knowing we’re not the first to walk this, there’s something pretty special about being on a trail that’s not flooded with the hordes of people that is often the curse of the most popular trails.
Indeed, given this regions history, I’m sure people have been walking these ways for hundreds of years (even longer than that 1753 treaty), but other than the trail itself, the weather worn markers that once divided these two kingdoms are often the only sign that we’re not in a world of complete wilderness!
Natures ability to hide its scars with beauty, make it all the more a contrast when we’d stumble upon the signs of war.
This region staged the main front line of a see-sawing conflict during the First World War, as the originally neutral Italians and Austro-Hungarians fought across this inhospitable terrain. Numerous trenches and deep tunnels excavated into the mountains testify to the brutal mountain war in the area.
In World War II a wall of large bunkers carved from solid rock, or constructed from more modern concrete dot the region, a stark reminder that this idyllic landscape has not always been so.
Like a Hobbit straight out of a Tolkien novel (and to be fair, much of the landscape could easily fit into one of his books), Lunch is for me, like Breakfast, a very important time of the day.
Today we again ate like kings, seated on the decking of the Rifugio Malga Nemes, a divine platter of cured meats, and the mountainous Austrian – Italian border as a stunning backdrop, this was indeed living!
The 1753 Trail was a heck of a day out, in a jaw dropping part of the world. A day were we certainly got our fill of history, nature and of course food!
Discovering well hidden, seemingly long lost stone markers added an unexpected thrill to the walk, almost like some sort of childrens game, and a level of fun that I most certainly didn’t expect!
With its first section only opening in 2023, this will ultimately be another incredible long-distance hiking trail, which for now we can enjoy as a stunning day walk!
