Record cycle tourism: between bicycle and music, the Puccini cycle path in Tuscany wins as cycle route of the year

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CESENA – A musical cycle path that combines the cultural and natural heritage present between Lucca and Versilia with the arias of Giacomo Puccini, whose centenary of death will be celebrated in 2024: a QR code located along the route allows access to an accompaniment musical during the ride with the symphonies of the composer from Torre del Lago, whose home where he spent many years of his life can also be visited. It is with the innovation of the Puccini cycle and pedestrian path that winds for 58 km between Lucca and Torre del Lago that the Tuscany Region has won the Oscar of cycle tourism, the prize that is awarded every year to the green cycle paths of the Regions that promote holidays on two-wheelers with services aimed at slow tourism.

The second prize goes to the Region of Sicily for Sicily Divide, a 457 km cycle route from Trapani to Catania – on secondary and rural roads but also former railways, dirt tracks on the banks of rivers and canals – which passes through 48 inhabited centers between city, an adventure cycle tour that crosses horizontally the most unknown central Sicily, the one far from crowded beaches and the most well-known places.

Third place went to the Veneto Region with the Treviso-Ostiglia cycle path, a green cycle path obtained from the recovery of a former railway built in the 1930s for military and commercial reasons: it is 70 km of easy walking along a wooded strip that crosses fields, country villages, naturalistic oases, waterways and Venetian villas from the Sile to the Po, between the provinces of Treviso, Padua and Vicenza.

The Press and Communication Award goes to the Emilia Romagna Region for the Food Valley cycle path between Parma and Busseto, while the special mention of Legambiente is assigned to the Abruzzo Region for Il camino d’Abruzzo, a 700 km ring tour in the heart of the region , to be covered on foot or by bicycle. Furthermore, for the first time, the Oscar of cycling tourism went abroad: the Italian Green Road Award 2023 was assigned to the island of Gran Canaria, a bike-friendly destination that made cycling accessible to everyone.

The passing of the baton between the Emilia Romagna Region, winner last year with the Grand Tour of the Savio Valley, took place in Cesena, in the epicenter of the area affected by the floods of recent weeks. And it represented an opportunity to testify how the bicycle can be a restart tool for a region that for years has focused on two wheels as a driving force for slow tourism within everyone’s reach for the enhancement of the territories. “Cycling tourism is by nature respectful of the environment, the Oscar del Cicloturismo is a moment of reflection on how it is necessary for everyone to learn to respect our land more, a moment of training to encourage this form of sustainable tourism and celebration of a region made up of extraordinary people who are getting up with a smile”, comments Ludovica Casellati, creator of the award.