Start March 1, 2022
Duration --
The initiative was born thanks to the coordination of the Tourism agency of the homogeneous area of Pinerolese 5 with the aim of enhancing the fortified landscape of Pinerolese, which strongly characterizes this territory.
The City of Pinerolo has submitted the project "Fortified landscape, in the evolution of the historical relationship between Piedmont and France" for funding to the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation through the funding notice "In Luce. Enhancing and telling the cultural identities of territories".
Ideally, The Fortresses Roads run along a part of the Glorious Repatriation of the Waldensians in the section that leads from the Colle di Costapiana towards the Val Troncea, passing through Col del Pis, and first in the Massello valley and then in the Germanasca valley climbs up the Valley of the 13 lakes of Prali in altitude to reach Col Giulian and then Bobbio Pellice. These areas were the scene of clashes and battles between the Waldensians and the French dragoons. In general, the paths - one for cycling and one for hiking - connect the plain to the mountain as they start from Villafranca and the hiking one, after crossing our territories, reaches the Pellice valley and joins the paths of Monviso.
During the year 2023, thanks to the project, the Alpi Cozie Parks were able to implement the mobile app "Alpi Cozie Outdoor", freely downloadable online and available to users, developing a new section dedicated to The Fortresses Roads.
The agency's app already contained cards related to military architecture sites and georeferenced points of the vast Alpi Cozie area where it is possible to find and visit these cultural testimonies of the past.
The new section offers an in-depth virtual tour of five fortresses located on the military roads subject to the enhancement of the funding.
For each fortress, there is an introductory card and 4 stages, located close to each other, which guide the tourist allowing them to deepen their knowledge of the territory. The stages build a path and delve into the themes that the tourist can observe at each stage, allowing them to experience a more complete and engaging visit, immersed in nature and history in a truly unique landscape.
At the same time, an internal structure for managing multilingual content has been created within the app. Currently, Italian and French are active, and in the future, other languages will be added. Through the Alpi Cozie Outdoor geodatabase platform, it will be possible to add other fortresses over time with their respective stages.
Lead organization: City of Pinerolo
Partner organizations: Municipalities of Fenestrelle, Usseaux, Prali, Management Entity of the Protected Areas of the Cozie Alps, Tourism Turin and Province, Music Academy of Pinerolo, La Tuno Foundation, Valdese Cultural Center Foundation.
Project website Le Strade dei Forti:
Portal Visit Pinerolo
open_in_new Map of the route | Map of the routes planned by the project "Le Strade dei Forti", in pdf format. | 2.6 MB |