The beautiful cycling roads of Mantua

Mantua is a town in the Po Valley in Lombardy.

The city lies only 28 miles from Verona airport. It is famous for its architectural masterpieces and its piazza-lounge without car, with trees, benches and lampposts and its three Renaissance palaces.

Mantua is UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Ducal Palace which preserves the Chamber of the Bride and Groom of the painter Mantegna.

Palazzo Te with the Hall of the Giants by Giulio Romano.

Palazzo d’Arco with the Sala dello Zodiaco by Falconetto.

In addition to this experience of rare beauty, it is advisable to take a bicycle to immerse yourself in the natural surroundings. Mantua – in fact – is surrounded by three lakes that arise from the river Mincio.

Reed beds, glades and immense expanses of lotus flower in the middle of summer.

The terrain is flat and very suitable for cycling routes that branch off from the city center.  

The itineraries by bike in the Mincio Park’s protected area including “Terre del Mincio” are numerous and cross the whole Park’s area, and they are often completed by easily accessible dirt roads. You a

immersed in the Mincio Park which is a jewel in the field of ecotourism and environmental education.

The wetlands of the Mincio Valleys and Mantua lakes, create significant caskets of biodiversity, unique habitats by the harmonious union between the plain and the river waters, inhabited by rare, endangered or protected plant and animal species.

In Mincio Park there are two “historical” visitor centers. Bertone park-garden in Goito is a green lung where autochthonous and exotic trees characterize the romantic park.

In this portion of landscape tamed by centuries of agricultural work water is not lacking. It benefits the white storks of which repopulation has been initiated in the area, under the protection of the park.

The wonderful white storks have been reintroduced as vital animal born along the Mincio river and now they have reached the number of 272.

Among other species of birds, the most common are the white heron, the grey heron, the cattle egret, the red heron, the nitticora, the great grebe, the egret, the pendolino, the kingfisher, the bee-eater, the coot, the cannareccione, the brown kite, the peregrine falcon and the marsh falcon. There are also increasing sightings of sacred ibis.

Also the sturgeon, which in the tanks of Goito – developed for more than a kilometre of extension – finds a habitat similar to that which it looks for in nature, in a center of reproduction to closed cycle (the fry are born the place) and accretion in spring water.

There are several species currently bred, some mainly for their eggs, others for their meat, interesting both from an organoleptic and nutritional point of view.

There is no doubt that caviar, obtained from the processing of sturgeon eggs with the addition of salt, arouses the fantasies and attracts the interest of most people.

Noteworthy is the fact that each species gives rise to eggs different in size, consistency color and, more interestingly, flavor: you can distinguish caviar from delicate and buttery tones such as Beluga.

And all this has been happening for three generations, since the first farm in 1973.Remember that Italy is the second producer of caviar in the world after China, which abounds in quantity, less in quality.

In Goito you can visit a farm. Then cycling you reach Valeggio sul Mincio. The waters of the Mincio supply one of the most picturesque hamlets in Italy, Borghetto, which, overseen by the watchful and imposing gaze of the Scaligero Castle, attracts tourists from all over the world.

Borghetto sul Mincio is a magical place where time seems to have stopped at the Middle Ages, between water mills, ancient walls and flower gardens. A history shaped by the Scaligeri and Visconti lords, Austrians and their gallant contemporaries that has kept the fascination of this little provincial town alive, competing with major cities with its attractions and inestimable beauties, ringed with eternal charm.

The visit is worth a meal at the Ristorante alla Borsa.

Once you get here, you’ll never want to leave, it’s like a kind of second home with a style that combines the traditional and the contemporary, constantly striving to delight ourselves and you with what we do best… entertainment for the palate.

You will be tasting the “Love Knots”, the famous tortellini of Valeggio: jewel nest of taste draped in a pasta cloak as thin as silk.