Trambileno
Trambileno is a scattered municipality of the Vallagarina, in the province of Trento, stretching along the Leno valley south of Ro...
Updated 21 July 2026
This season · July · Summer
What to do in Trambileno now
The story
The story of Trambileno
Trambileno South of Rovereto, Toward the Pasubio
Trambileno lies in the southern part of the Vallagarina, south of Rovereto, in a transitional territory between Trentino and Veneto at the foot of the Pasubio massif. The scattered municipality covers over fifty square kilometres and rises at the confluence of two streams, the Leno di Vallarsa and the Leno di Terragnolo, from which the town's name derives, once described as land 'between the two Leni'. It borders the municipalities of Vallarsa, Terragnolo and Rovereto and, beyond the ridge, Posina and Valli del Pasubio, already in the province of Vicenza: a hinge position that over the centuries made this territory a place of passage and, during the First World War, a boundary line between two armies. The landscape alternates dense woods, cultivated terraces and rocky walls, in a succession of altitudes that climb quickly from the roughly five hundred metres of the valley floor toward the peaks of the Pasubio, well above two thousand metres.
The Great War and the Sites of Memory
Between 1915 and 1918, the territory of Trambileno was on the front line between the Italian and Austro-Hungarian armies, fought over in harsh battles among the rocks of the Pasubio. The most imposing testimony to this past is Forte Pozzacchio, also known as Werk Valmorbia, an Austro-Hungarian fortification built between 1912 and 1915 and entirely carved into the rock, designed to bar the way from the Vallarsa toward Rovereto. Captured still unfinished by the Italians on 3 June 1915, it was retaken by the Austro-Hungarians during the Strafexpedition of May 1916 and withstood an Italian attempt to recapture it in June of the same year, before being abandoned in November 1918. Restored by the municipality, the fort can be visited today, with its galleries, firing positions and panoramic walkway. A little higher up, on the slopes of the Pasubio, lies the Zona Sacra, declared a national monument in 1922, a landscape marked by craters, trenches and walkways carved into the rock, a memory of one of the harshest Great War fronts in the Alps.
The Pasubio and Hiking
From the territory of Trambileno start some of the routes leading toward the peaks of the Pasubio, the limestone and dolomitic massif that culminates at 2,232 metres with Cima Palon and marks the border with the province of Vicenza. A reference point for hikers and mountaineers is the Rifugio Vincenzo Lancia, a base for climbs toward the Denti del Pasubio, the two rocky peaks divided during the war between the Italian and Austro-Hungarian lines and still today furrowed by tunnels and trenches. Nearby also run the famous Strada delle 52 Gallerie, a war mule track carved into the rock to allow Italian troops to move sheltered from enemy fire, and the Strada degli Eroi, which honours with plaques fifteen fallen soldiers decorated with the Gold Medal. Amid woods, mountain pastures such as Alpe Alba and rocky walls, the area offers routes of every difficulty, from walks among the hamlets to the most demanding mountaineering climbs on the walls of the Pasubio.
The Hamlets, Farmsteads and Nature
Trambileno is a scattered municipality made up of eighteen hamlets, including Moscheri, the municipal seat, and Porte, Pozza, Pozzacchio, Dosso, San Colombano, Sega and Vignala, scattered among chestnut woods and terraced slopes. On a rocky spur above the Leno stream stands the Eremo di San Colombano, a hermitage documented since the year 753, reached by a short path carved into the cliff face. In Moscheri stands the Sanctuary of the Madonna de La Salette, built in 1856 thanks to the donation of a local nobleman and still depicted today on the municipal coat of arms. The agricultural landscape, made of isolated farmsteads, centuries-old chestnut woods and high-altitude pastures used for summer haymaking, preserves traces of the settlement of German-speaking colonists who arrived in the 13th century, of which a memory survives in the Cimbrian identity still recognised by a small part of the population.
History and Experiences
The municipality of Trambileno, in its current form, was established on 16 October 1920, but its roots lie in a history of rural mountain communities marked by emigration and reconstruction. Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many families from the area left the Vallagarina to seek their fortune in South America, giving rise to ties that survive today in the twinning with the Brazilian city of Bento Gonçalves, also founded by Trentino emigrants. Devastated by the fighting of the Great War and rebuilt in the postwar years, the territory has managed to turn the scars of the conflict into a shared heritage of memory, alongside a rural economy based on mountain farming and small-scale livestock keeping. Today Trambileno offers tourism that combines visits to Forte Pozzacchio and the Great War trails of the Pasubio with walks among the hamlets, farmsteads and chestnut woods, in a narrative that holds together history, nature and border identity.
Not to be missed
- Forte Pozzacchio (Werk Valmorbia), a rock-carved Austro-Hungarian fortification
- The Eremo di San Colombano hermitage above the Leno stream
- The Sanctuary of the Madonna de La Salette in Moscheri
- A hike on the Pasubio starting from Rifugio Vincenzo Lancia
- The Great War trails among trenches and tunnels on the Pasubio
To see
What to see in Trambileno
Routes · Trovido Route
Routes in Trambileno
Jobs · JobFlow
