Encore – Strade Montane Vol. II

With 146 kilometers and an elevation gain of about 4,000 meters, Encore is certainly not a walk in the park. This ring itinerary, for which we recommend the use of a mountain bike, runs through the most significant places of the Gothic Line on the Bolognese Apennines, the scene of the great war events that alternated the American battalions and partisan groups against the last German armies barricaded on the mountain heights at the gates of the city.

Doing the entire Tour in one day is quite a challenge. If you decide to do this, make sure you leave early and bring lights with you for when the sun goes down. Alternatively, you can easily divide the route into two or more stages and camp or sleep in one of the many accommodation facilities in the area.

Encore is the name of the vast military operation that deployed an enormous number of forces in one of the harshest – and premature – winters of those difficult years. We are between November 1944 and March 1945: Bologna is truly a stone's throw away, but the German grip is still struggling to let go.

Everyone is there on the front of the Italian Campaign. There are the Americans of the infamous 10th Mountain Division, the American military unit formed in the rocky mountains of Colorado and the Red Star Partisan Brigade. There are even the Brazilians, whose president not too long ago said it would be easier for a snake to smoke than to see Brazil take part in the conflict. The Força Expedicionária Brasileira will successfully complete the battle of Monte Castello, after three long months that will make this battle the hardest battle that the Brazilian army still remembers. Sewn on their uniforms, the patch depicting a smoking snake.

Among the vestiges of those fights, along the way you often come across the remains of foxholes, trench holes, as well as many glimpses of genuine scenic beauty, such as the particular Labante waterfall and the large stone complex of Stella Mattutina.

The departure is from the municipality of Silla, which can be easily reached by regional train from Bologna in about an hour. The itinerary is a succession of small Apennine villages with evocative names such as Pietracolora, Veggio and Tudiano, accompanied on the horizon by the ridge that ranges from Corno alle Scale to Monte Cimone.

The return to the valley gives you the opportunity to breathe a sigh of relief and recover the energy you will need to walk the ridges of the Monte Sole Historical Regional Park. Here you can cross today in total freedom the same places where between 29 September and October 5, 1944 Nazi Germany was responsible for the infamous massacre of Monte Sole. There is nothing to add to what has not already been written. Everything that happened can be contemplated in silence: the signs of that great darkness are still there in everyone's memory.

It arrives in Grizzana Morandi, at the foot of Monte Vigese, along the long dirt roads of Monte Sole. It crosses the Via della Lana and della Seta before venturing onto dirt roads little known to two-wheelers: the last effort to overcome the watercourse of the Limentra Orientale and immerse yourself in the woods of Castel di Casio and Porretta Terme, before descending on the last singletrack in the greenery up to Silla.