Paluzza

Paluzza is a town on the historic Via dell’ambra (Amber Road) that ran from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea from the Bronze Age on. The historic settlement was founded by workers labouring in the copper and silver mines on the mountains named Pal Piccolo and Pal Grande and on the Creta mountain. The village comprises the hamlets Naunina, Rivo, Cleulis and Timau (Tischlbong in Germanic dialect). In fact the latter is a German language island, and it is also home to the Tempio Ossario (Ossuary Temple), where the remains of 1,764 fallen combatants from the Alto Bût front and the surrounding area are conserved. An important military stronghold along the road that led to the transalpine passes, the Moscarda Tower is all that remains of a complex defence and customs structure at the location Enfretors (“between the two towers”), on the road leading to the Monte Croce Carnico Pass. Today it is a museum of the territory with an adjoining botanical garden.
The Great War Museum houses a vast collection of Italian-Austrian war relics found in the mountains around Timau and about a thousand documents and photographs that illustrate the dramatic events of the Great War on the front line named the “Carnia Zone”, whose Monte Croce Carnico Pass was one of the sections that saw the bitterest fighting. The powerful front-line fortifications of the two opposing sides, which at the summit of the Pal Piccolo mountain were only a few dozen metres apart, are still clearly visible today.