Livinallongo del Col di Lana

Ladin municipality of Fodom, of which Arabba is the tourist hamlet, marked by the history of the Great War on Col di Lana.

A short history

Livinallongo del Col di Lana, Fodom in Ladin, is a scattered municipality in the province of Belluno that stretches along the Cordevole stream, between Passo Pordoi and Passo Falzarego. The administrative centre is Pieve di Livinallongo, but the name tourists know is that of its most famous hamlet: Arabba, at the foot of the Sella.

Ladin is spoken here. The valley of Fodom was part of the Tyrol and passed to Italy only after the First World War, like the other Ladin valleys. In the farmsteads and hamlets scattered on the slopes the language, the place names and the old farming customs survive, mixed with more than a century of alpine tourism.

Col di Lana, the mountain that gives the municipality its name, still bears the marks of the Great War. Between 1915 and 1916 the summit was the scene of brutal fighting between Italians and Austro-Hungarians. The Alpini dug a tunnel under the peak and on 17 April 1916 blew it up with a mine. The mountain is remembered as the Col di Sangue, the Hill of Blood, for the thousands who died.

What to see

• The Passo Pordoi and the Sellaronda, above Arabba, gateway to the great ski circuit around the Sella group.
• The Great War Museum in the mountains, which tells the story of the Dolomite front and the battles fought on these peaks.
• Col di Lana with its remains of trenches and walkways, a destination for historical hikes above Pieve di Livinallongo.