Le Vie dei Tesori is one of the largest Italian festivals dedicated to the discovery of the heritage of cities. In Mantua, the Association of Palazzo Te and the Mantovani Museums has joined the Festival for some years and every October it has opened dozens of "invisible" places, albeit rich in history and art, and introduced them to thousands of people: this 'year to the events in the city some external experiences were added, including the bicycle tour to the Forte di Pietole, an artifact that surprised for the architecture and the interest of the themes it presents. The tour will be repeated on dates to be communicated.
Within the EuroVelo 8 cycle path, a section called BI2 - Po Cycle Path involves the Virgilio - Forte di Pietole Museum Park, joining by means of the EuroVelo 7 cycle path at the level of Governolo. The stretch of this cycle path refers to the Po as a corridor to be covered by bike on both banks starting from the main available resource which is the main embankment or the last defense towards the outside from major floods. With the Po cycle path, one from continuity to the various stretches made cycleable by the local administrations, albeit deserving, which however do not yet consider, for various reasons, the Po as the only entity or even better cycling infrastructure that goes beyond the regional or provincial borders. Technically the route is quite varied both in terms of road surface and degree of protection linked to the most varied uses of the main embankment ranging from the headquarters of the former state road 62 in the Emilia region to the quiet stretches of the Lodi area, authentic cycle paths for kilometers and kilometers without traffic. The best feasible route today is sometimes obtained by passing from one bank to another to obtain the best safety zza, or for those pedaling with suitable wheels, the best off-road sections are indicated. The bicycle allows you to appreciate all that the area has to offer and even on a sunny summer day the refreshment of a fountain in a square or the shade of a poplar grove become unique experiences. Crossing by bike the dozens of small villages above the river is something to try and they will remain in our memory not only for the arcades, the red brick, the palaces and castles but also for the encounters with the people of the Po or for a dish of simple but tasty things. Interspersed between the inhabited centers are the rural buildings, farmhouses, courtyards, houses of "casanti", sometimes still inhabited by men and cattle herds that seem to recall the steps of Virgilian Bucoliche and Georgics. The green landscape instead oscillates continuously between the natural environments of the humid floodplain with very tall poplars and willows and reassuring oaks with columnar trunks and the cultivated fields with all the productive essences from corn to rice, from wheat to soybeans. The cultivated landscape also offers the typical changes of the particularly suggestive seasonal trend in the case of the rice field flooded in spring and literally luminous red-gold under the October sun at harvest time, or the intense green of the alfalfa at the first cut in May to then offer the intense scent of the flower in July.
