France and Italy, together for slow and sustainable tourism

Monviso, also known as King of Stone, is the highest mountain in the Cottian Alps and has become a UNESCO heritage site as a cross-border biosphere reserve with France.

Furthermore, since 2016, this is part of the Monviso Natural Park on the Italian sector, while, on the French sector, it is part of the Queyras Natural Park.

Monviso, therefore, represents a bridge between the two communities, which have long collaborated to improve the sustainable development of territories and economic-social systems.

The first project that united the two territories was VéloViso, a project aimed at strengthening the cycle tourism offer by creating 125 routes and 3 thousand km by bike around Monviso, a cycle tourism network for athletes and families involving 6 valleys in the Province of Cuneo and 4 in France.

Strengthened by the great results obtained, Francia continues with the Terres Monviso Integrated Territorial Plan (PITs): the objective of the project is to create and promote a sad destination around Monviso, bringing together the territories of the Saluzzo area and the six valleys from Po to Stura with three communities of the French municipalities Guillestre-Queyras, Ubaye-SP, Serre -Poncon.

To try to unite and integrate the Italy - France tourism system, and ensure that the project brings excellent results, the initiative will be divided as follows: on the Italian side a system of seven valley gates will be installed where it will be possible to find tourist information, local products, e-bike rentals, buses, guides and maps.

On the French side, however, mobile vehicles will focus attention on the outdoors and gentle tourism, enhancing the history, culture and quality of local products.

These places, wonderful and sparsely inhabited, are perfect for discovering by e-bike: woods, panoramas, nature refuges. Perfect both for gentle and family tourism but also for technical athletes.

From this perspective, the candidacy of Saluzzo - Monviso as Italian Capital of Culture 2024 takes on an even more important denotation: it is the first time, in fact, that an Alpine territory has nominated itself not only as a naturalistic one, but also as a territory of innovation and culture .