Mount Cifalco and Mount Cairo, the German eyes

Mount Cifalco and Mount Cairo

Mount Cifalco and Mount Cairo

When you choose to ask for a ww2 private battlefield tour with a tour guide, if you are interested in the German point of view on Montecassino, please ask to visit the Monte Cifalco German Bunkers.
Right in front of the five-miles-distant abbey, stood Monte Cifalco. It is a 3,173 feet high mountain, so the German Weermacht observeers on its summit could see the Allies without fear of being seen.

Mount Cifalco the perfect point of observation

Mount Cifalco stood at the end of the Rapido Valley and from the valley floor, Cifalco looked like just as one among many mountains, but from its upper sloves there was an extraordinary view. An observer on the top of the Cifalco could see the entire Rapido Valley, Cassino town, and Abbey and the Liri plain below it. Every Allied position anywhere on the plain was visible from Cifalco and from here the Germans could call down accurate artillery fire on anything that moved below.

Mount Cifalco was used Aldo by General Senger

Senger himself often climbed up to the observation bunkers and watched the attacking. It is now possible to understand how important was Monte Cifalco, by visiting the defensive bunkers used by the German soldiers between the end of 1943 and the beginning of 1944 they are quite large and well organized and some of these shelters are characterised by internal paving and in good condition. In the above mentioned area twenty five shelters were discovered.

Mount Cifalco and the German bunkers

At present they are no longer used and many of them are not reachable because they are covered in vegetation. Impossible to see them from outside, but incredible to esperience them from the inside! More or less what happened with the pillboxes on the Hitler Line .