Ciclovie di Oropa. An ideal itinerary for city cyclists who have never tried a journey in the saddle. The trip starts by train, from Santhià.
Santhià is a railway station like many others: platforms, a waiting room, a small newsstand — but with one important difference: many people stepping off the train with backpacks and trekking poles. Santhià is in fact the starting point of the Cammino di Oropa, an itinerary that over four days reaches one of the most celebrated sanctuaries in the Alps and that every year brings thousands of travellers to the Biellese, a territory that sits on the margins of tourism but has been revitalised by slow travel. In the villages along the route, handmade welcome signs have appeared, along with rest areas and information points managed by volunteers. A form of tourism that is good for the land and for local communities.
Riding the wave of the walking route's success, the Ciclovie di Oropa were born: three stage-by-stage itineraries covering a vast territory stretching between the Canavese and eastern Biellese. The route only partly overlaps with the walking one, but the philosophy behind its design is the same: it is an inclusive travel proposal, aimed at those who see walking and cycling not as the goal of a holiday, but as sustainable means of taking a break and discovering a territory at the right pace.
The Ciclovie di Oropa were designed with particular attention to cyclists who use their bikes daily for getting around the city, but have never yet experienced the thrill of a touring journey. A short train ride (one hour from Milan, half an hour from Turin) gets you to Santhià with your bicycle on board. Alternatively, it is possible to book an e-bike that is delivered complete with a rack and panniers at the station, allowing you to tackle the route's ups and downs with the help of pedal assistance, guided by the app and GPS tracks available on the official website.
The itinerary follows a network of secondary roads with very little traffic, ninety per cent of them paved, which from the agricultural plain skirts Lake Viverone, where in the warmer months you can take a refreshing swim. The route climbs slowly through the Serra d'Ivrea, the longest moraine in Europe, to reach Bose, a monastic community known well beyond the Biellese, which together with the village of Magnano is worth a small detour.
The climb continues towards the Alpi Biellesi, and the landscape changes abruptly as you turn onto the Tracciolino: the road that leads from Andrate towards the sanctuary of Oropa is a balcony over the Po Valley. Here you stop to take in a panorama that stretches from the skyscrapers of Turin to those of Milan, from Monviso to the hills of Monferrato and the distant ridges of the Ligurian Apennines. Before arriving at the sanctuary of Oropa, small detours allow you to reach Bagneri, a small stone village once inhabited by farmers and shepherds, now home to the Ecomuseo della Civiltà Montanara, and the Trappa di Sordevolo, a Trappist monastery built at the end of the eighteenth century. Abandoned and reduced to a ruin, it has been restored and now houses a mountain refuge and l'Ecomuseo della Tradizione Costruttiva.
The sanctuary of Oropa, the destination for thousands of walkers on the Cammino di Oropa, marks the beginning of a new part of the journey. Arriving from the Tracciolino, you enter through the Prato delle Oche, the open space created in the eighteenth century by levelling the hill that closed the basin to the south — it was then that the complex became visible from the plain. At the centre of the second square, the one enclosed by Pietro Arduzzi's portico, stands the Burnell, a fountain dating to 1588 with ladles for drinking: many pilgrims still stop here today, for reasons that have more to do with the symbolic value of the gesture than with thirst.
The Basilica Antica houses within it the Sacello Eusebiano, where the wooden statue of the Black Madonna is displayed — a work from the thirteenth or fourteenth century, carved by a master craftsman from the Aosta Valley, although legend attributes the statue to Saint Luke the Evangelist, said to have been brought from Palestine by Bishop Eusebius in the fourth century. In reality, Oropa was a place of pre-Christian worship, as evidenced by the boulder still visible on the north side of the ancient basilica. The sanctuary as we see it today was born in the seventeenth century, in the climate of the Counter-Reformation, as a Catholic response to the Reformed churches.
Those who wish to explore further can visit the Museo dei tesori di Oropa, open on Saturdays and Sundays (every day except Monday in July and August), and the gallery of ex-votos — folk art documenting narrow escapes from mountain dangers: avalanches, lightning strikes, accidents with farm machinery. The Sacro Monte, inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage List and included in the special nature reserve established by the Regione Piemonte, features twelve eighteenth-century chapels with statues and frescoes recounting the life of the Virgin: a devotional trail you can walk on foot, among the beech trees, before getting back in the saddle. From Oropa, a short climb leads to the Galleria Rosazza, the gateway to the Valle Cervo, before descending to Rosazza, a village that is part of the Borghi più belli d'Italia circuit, with nineteenth-century architecture laden with Masonic and esoteric symbolism — the fruit of the patronage of Senator Federico Rosazza, to whom the connecting road to Oropa is also owed, as well as the tunnel and the eclectic chapels, the small temples and the Locanda, where a gourmet stop is very much in order.
Leaving the Valle Cervo, the route joins the Panoramica Zegna, a 26-kilometre road built in the first half of the twentieth century by textile entrepreneur Ermenegildo Zegna. To counter the deforestation of the Biellese mountains — after centuries of woodland exploitation for charcoal production and livestock farming — Zegna launched a reforestation project across a territory that had been left almost entirely treeless.
The Oasi Zegna, established in 1993 by the Zegna family as an evolution of that project and today one of Italy's leading privately managed natural parks, is crossed by cyclists pedalling towards Bielmonte. One hundred square kilometres of woodland, trails and mountain pastures, with active biodiversity conservation projects. In spring the rhododendrons bloom along the road; in October the forest turns to gold: an immersive experience in the colours of autumn that is worth the journey in itself.
The descent towards the plain leads through landscapes found nowhere else. The Baragge — high plateaus stretching between the course of the Elvo torrent and the Ticino, along the foothills — consist of heathlands and open grasslands: a landscape that has earned the area the nickname "savana biellese" (the Biella savanna). It is a habitat protected as a nature reserve, threaded by roads perfect for gravel cycling. The route then reaches the Ricetto di Candelo: a fortified medieval village made up of low houses with cellars and granaries. It was built in the fourteenth century to protect harvests and the local population in times of war.
The route continues towards Biella, which deserves a stop to visit Michelangelo Pistoletto's permanent exhibition at Cittadellarte, and to climb up to the Piazzo, the medieval quarter perched on the hill that overlooks the city. Around the central Piazza della Cisterna stand noble palaces, low arcades, some medieval houses with a distinctly northern European feel, and Italian-style gardens with views over the modern city below. On the way back towards Santhià, the route passes through the Parco della Bessa, where time is slowly rewilding a landscape that once housed a vast Roman-era mine. Immense piles of pebbles were left behind by ancient gold prospectors: an almost lunar, silent scenery. The journey comes full circle with a visit to the Ecomuseo dell'Oro e della Bessa, before returning to Santhià and catching the train.
The itinerary described in this article combines the Ciclovia della Serra and the Ciclovia Orientale, and is published on the SlowMap portal as the Gran Tour del Biellese. It is the iconic route of the Biella Slow Region, a wide area where cyclists can ride for several consecutive days along a dense network of itineraries, making use of the services provided by Naturalmente Biella in Bici, the product club created with the support of BIellezza, the foundation that promotes tourism in the Biella area.
The complete Gran Tour itinerary can be comfortably covered in three or four days, with stages of varying length depending on fitness level and preferred pace. The Ciclovia della Serra alone can be ridden in two days, making it the ideal choice for a weekend getaway. The best season runs from spring to autumn: May and June for the blossoms along the Panoramica Zegna, September and October for the colours of the woodland and the quality of the light.
The access points by public transport are the railway stations of Santhià (reachable in one hour from Milano and half an hour from Torino) and Biella. The "train + bike" service allows you to bring your own bicycle, but those who prefer to travel light can book an e-bike delivered directly to the station. The itinerary is equipped with full signage: yellow arrows on a blue background for the outward leg up to the sanctuary of Oropa, and blue arrows on a yellow background for the return. The accommodation facilities along the route are geared towards cycle tourism, with secure bike storage and charging points for e-bike batteries.
The Travel Planner available on the website allows you to plan the length of each stage based on your fitness level and the time available. Once the trip is planned, you can download a pdf guide to your smartphone containing links to interactive maps, GPS tracks, accommodation contacts and bike rental services. By purchasing the SlowCard — the discount card also used by pilgrims on the Cammino di Oropa — you are entitled to a 10 per cent discount on accommodation, restaurants and e-bike rentals.