Published on: 16 March 2014  | Last updated: 13 January 2020

Options from Feltre

From Feltre the official route takes you via Cesiomaggiore and the Passo di Pradorego (910m). It’s a very scenic option, but also pretty challenging - possibly the most challenging climb on the whole Via Claudia. The climb is about 650 metres in altitude gain. The first part is relat­ively steep (more than 10 per cent) but then gets easier nearer the top. This is a very quiet minor road, asphalted a few years ago. If you don’t mind the climb this is a great option, but otherwise there’s a shuttle from Mel.

If you want to cycle, but you’d rather avoid the climb to the Passo di Praderadego, the main problem is that the most direct option is the Strada Regionale 348. It’s not a partic­u­larly busy road, but it’s narrow. After the peaceful cycleways of the preceding sections the 14 kilometres on the SR348 could be an unpleasant contrast. There is a better option in that you could follow the official route to Busche and from there pick up the SP1 Bis as it heads south following the eastern bank of the Piave river. There’s a tunnel near Vas, but you can avoid it by taking a service road that skirts round the tunnel. This option then swings past the town of Valdobbiadene, 23 kilometres from Feltre. The Valdobbiadene is the area where the most presti­gious prosecco comes from - although the town itself is on the the western edge of the wine-growing district.

Map and altitude profile: Passo-di-Praderadego option

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Distances
Feltre to Cesiomaggiore	14 kms
Cesiomaggiore to Passo di Praderadego	27 kms
Passo di Praderadego to Treviso	68 kms

Map and altitude profile: unofficial alternative

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Distances
Feltre to Valdobbiadene	49 kms
Valdobbiadene to Treviso	58 kms

Feltre to Nervesa della Battaglia via Cesiomaggiore and the Passo di Praderadego

From Feltre the official route takes you to via the village of Cesiomaggiore - Il Paese del Ciclismo, where all of the streets are named after famous cyclists. At Cesiomaggiore is the Museo Storico della Bicicletta. The museum is the collection of Sergio Sanvido who used to own the local bike shop. Unfortunately, the museum is only open at weekends (March to October).

There are lots of bikes from Italy, France the US and UK from the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as bikes that belonged to the Italian cycling heroes including Coppi, Bartali, Moser, Saronni and Pantani. For me, the most inter­esting part of the collection was the working bikes that belonged to itinerant artisans - including, intriguingly a mobile bike-coffee-roaster. (photogallery).

After Cesiomaggiore you descend towards the bridge over the Piave and start the climb to the Passo di Praderadego (910m).

On the way towards the pass the route passes by the Castello di Zumelle with its charac­ter­istic roofed tower. There was a castle on this site in Roman times - quite possibly to guard the via Claudia Augusta or one of its variants. There are pictures and more about the history of the castle on magicoveneto.it. If you’re inter­ested, you can also stay there (booking: com: Castello di Zumelle).

From here on its pretty flat as the route heads across the Veneto plain to Ponte di Priula where the tow variants join together and head over the river Piave and then continue on to Treviso.

The Piave and the Grande Guerra

During the First World War, after the disastrous defeat at Caporetto (now Kobarid in Slovenia) in 1917, the Italian forces pulled back to the Piave river. The river became the scene of some of the most desperate battles of the war - commem­orated by the number of place-names that include the words ‘della Battaglia’ (of the battle). The Austro-Hungarian commanders threw all of their available forces at the line in the effort to make a final decisive break­through. Had they managed to break the line at the Piave there would have been nothing but plains between them and the heart­lands of the Veneto and northern Italy. The huge losses suffered by the empire meant that these battles were a turning point - not just for the war on the Italian front but for the war as a whole.

There are a number of war memorials and military cemeteries in the area. In Feltre itself there’s the San Paolo Cimitero Militare Tedesco and an Italian Sacrario Militare with an adjoining Austro-Hungarian military cemetery. South from Feltre there’s another Austro-Hungarian and German mausoleum on the hilltop overlooking Quero (Mausoleo Quero). At Pederobba there’s a French war memorial. Above Nervesa della Battaglia you can see the grim Sacrario del Montello which holds the remains of over 9,000 Italian soldiers - of whom over 6,000 were unidentified. 

A couple of kilometres away is the Commonwealth Cemetery (Cimitero Britannico) at Giavera - up a path through olive trees, tucked away behind the village church. The cemetery is one of two Commonwealth war cemeteries on this front where British dead from the First World War are buried (the other is at Tezze). There are 416 soldiers buried here. It is a moving place. Each of the grave­stones has a name and the dates of birth and death: it’s always shocking to see how young these soldiers were. Most died in the summer and autumn of 1918 sometimes in the very last days of the war. Many grave­stones also carry an inscription chosen by the family; occasionally there’s a flash of raw grief, or something more personal. For me, this inscription, on the grave­stone of a 19-year-old, stood out:

“ O God how mysterious are thy ways to take my dear son in the best of his days ”

Treviso

Treviso is another charming, but often overlooked, Veneto town. The whole of the centro storico within the city walls is a zona traffico limitato meaning that it’s easy to cycle. The official route takes you round the city walls, but it’s well worth taking a bit of time to have a wander round before picking up the route as it leaves town on the Girasile cycleway.

Articles in this series

• The Via Claudia in Germany and Austria: Overview
• Via Claudia Part 1: Donauwörth to Landsberg Am Lech
• Via Claudia Part 2: Landsberg am Lech to Füssen
• Via Claudia Part 3: Füssen to Imst
• Via Claudia Part 4: Along the valley of the Inn
• The Via Claudia in Italy: Overview
• Via Claudia Part 5: The Vinschgau
• Via Claudia Part 6: Algund to Trento
• Via Claudia Part 7: Trento to the Lago di Caldonazzo
• Via Claudia 8: San Cristoforo al Lago to Feltre via the Valsugana
• Via Claudia Part 9: the Valsugana cycleway to Bassano del Grappa
• Via Claudia Part 10: San Cristoforo al Lago to Feltre via the Passo Croce d’Aune
• Via Claudia Part 11: Feltre to Treviso
• Via Claudia Part 12: Treviso to Altino (and Venezia)
• Via Claudia Part 13: Trento to Verona and Ostiglia