Finally the Bergamo-Brescia Culture Cycle Route exists, but where would the culture be?

The Culture Cycle Route from Bergamo to Brescia has been inaugurated so let’s ride on it. We start from Città Alta, take via Pignolo, then via Madonna della Neve, then via Fantoni. We head towards Seriate. The distance to cover is 75 kilometers, instead of the 50 that divide the two cities. But this is a cultural cycle route, so you expect to take some longer rides to visit places of value, places of beauty. How do you expect to find signs that explain the territory, the places, their characteristics, be they rivers or ancient buildings, or streams, bridges, countryside, ruins… In reality, for now, we have found nothing of all this , at least in the first part of the street.

The path is there, but for now it is difficult to define it as cultural. For example, there is no sign that, where the tramway crosses in via Bono, explains that the ancient railway of the valleys passed through there, towards San Pellegrino and Clusone, nor does it say what the tramway that passes today is. . And when we pass the Serio river no sign says what that beautiful course of transparent blue water is (these days the river is rich in water and with a strong current).

The signs, at least, brown with the arrow indicating the direction to follow and a bicycle underneath, are clear: you can’t go wrong, also because “Ciclovia della Cultura” is written above. It is good that the signs are widespread and clearly distinguishable also because they can be confused with other cycling signs, for example linked to the lakes cycle route, which was traced by the members of Fiab and Aribi in his time.

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Proceed along via Fantoni, a van has parked on the pavement, so you have to go down to the street, then turn into via Bono and, just beyond the tram crossing, into via David, turn immediately left and you will find yourself on the cycle path that runs alongside the tracks. Five hundred meters and then here we are in Borgo Palazzo, we proceed along what was perhaps the first real city cycle path, the one that leads from Bergamo to Seriate, inaugurated at the beginning of 2000. Before the viaduct, a construction site for the renovation of street furniture It prevents us from going further, and we don’t notice any alternative passage: we have to get off the pavement and proceed onto the road, as pedestrians must do. About fifty meters and the construction site is finished.

Once past the viaduct, in front of the former mental hospital, there is a beautiful rectangular parallelepiped with the symbol of the cycle route of culture and an off digital panel: it is likely that in the future it will give news regarding the city, roads, events, shows. Going towards Celadina another cycling sign appears again under the name of Ciclovia della Cultura; two signs indicate, one to the left and one in the straight direction, respectively the former power plant (explaining that 500 meters are missing) and the city of Brescia and the Seriate station (indicating that 70.7 and 3.2 kilometers are missing respectively), there is also the sign of the Lombardy Region with a nice “2” written and one of Bicitalia with a nice “12”. (…)

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