The Valnerina Cycle Route Along the River Nera

The Umbria that makes the coaches fall in love is made of golden hills, crowded basilicas and villages taken by storm. But there's another one, shadier and wilder, that hides in the valley carved by the river Nera: the Valnerina. Here there's no plain, the mountains close in around the water and the villages seem to cling to the rock. It's an Umbria of isolated abbeys, deep gorges and dense woods, and precisely because it's awkward and off the major circuits it remains a place where you pedal in peace, far from the noise of Assisi and Perugia.

Along the Nera

The thread is the Nera, the green and impetuous river that gives the valley its name. Following the valley floor you come upon some of Umbria's most authentic jewels. Ferentillo is famous for its position between two opposing fortresses and for the nearby Abbey of San Pietro in Valle, an ancient Benedictine monastery set deep in the woods, one of those places where time seems to have stopped. Further downstream the spectacle of the Cascata delle Marmore opens up, one of the highest waterfalls in Europe, a Roman-era engineering work that plunges thunderously between the slopes: it's absolutely worth a detour to see it when the falls are switched on. Heading upstream instead you reach the valley's more inland villages, among them Scheggino, gathered around its springs and canals, and you enter a landscape of ever narrower gorges where the road and the water run side by side.

How to ride

Getting around here means pedalling on low-traffic valley-floor roads, choosing where possible the secondary routes that follow the river away from the main arteries. The surface is mostly asphalt, with a few stretches on gravel roads along the embankments, and the general trend gently follows the course of the Nera, on a slight climb as you head up the valley and on a pleasant descent as you drop back toward the plain. The overall effort is modest if you stick to the valley floor, but it becomes severe at once if you decide to climb toward the villages perched on high or toward the abbeys hidden in the woods, where the ramps turn steep. It's a valley you can take slowly, building the itinerary around your own legs and stopping often, because every bend of the river offers a view.

When to go

The best window is broad, from April to October, and this is one of the Valnerina's charms. In April the valley bursts with new green, the water is abundant from the snowmelt and the days lengthen, while tourism is still entirely absent. Autumn, up to October, brings the warm colours of the woods and a soft light that kindles the gorges. Even in the peak months the valley stays cooler than the Umbrian hills thanks to the shade of the slopes and the constant presence of water, and in any case it never sees the crowds of the classic destinations: those who come to Umbria for the art cities rarely venture this far, and that leaves the roads of the Nera silent.

Practical tips

A practical tip: check the opening hours of the Cascata delle Marmore in advance, because the falls are regulated and the spectacle depends on those hours, and plan your stage accordingly. Make the most of stops in the villages to taste the produce of the woods, from black truffles to mushrooms, because this valley has a tasty and sincere mountain cuisine. And always carry water and a supply of food when you move away from the villages, because between one abbey and another the wooded stretches are long, shady and wonderfully solitary.

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