The Alpina Mediterranean Cycle Route, which connects Italy, Slovenia, and Croatia is now open to a world of adventure travelers hungry to discover new cultures and undertake new challenges. The route — which covers approximately 300 kilometers spread over six stages — was created by GoodTrail, a Slovenia-based ​​adventure-travel development firm with more than a decade of cycle route creation experience, and co-funded by the European Union under the Inter Bike III project, Interreg VI-A Italy-Slovenia 2021-2027 Programme.

For travelers serious about adventure on two wheels, a journey along the Alpina Mediterranean — one of the world’s most important cycling connectors — is a necessity. Starting in the province of Udine and the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, just south of the point where the Fella River and Tagliamento River merge, the route winds its way through the Alps in Slovenia before diving to Croatia’s Adriatic coast.

Among the connections the Alpina Mediterranean makes is with the famous Ciclovia Alpe-Adria Radweg (Alps to Adriatic Route). The Alpina Mediterranean also intersects with the Trans Dinarica Cycle Route, which takes travelers through all eight countries of the Western Balkans: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia. In doing so, a connection is made between ancient cultures strung across this corridor between Central and Southeastern Europe.

Designed for touring cyclists of all abilities, the Alpina Mediterranean provides adventurers, who tend toward authentic experiences, a method to imbibe these regions at human-powered speed while discovering traditions — culinary, musical, and historical — with slow-travel intention. The Alpina Mediterranean combines quiet asphalt roads, macadam, and forest paths. It is perfect for active travelers who want to engage with new places on two wheels during the day … and enjoy local cuisine, wine, and unique heritage every night.

The route provides local travel operators a way to develop tours/ideas around this epic connection between cultures, and thus encourages travelers with a real, responsible, and sustainable way to embrace one of the world’s best regions to ride a bicycle.