Tarvisio-Villach
Several years ago the former Pontebbana railroad, which ran on only one track between Gemona and Tarvisio, was decommissioned and replaced with a new double-track alignment that runs mostly through tunnels, a solution more fitting the Venezia-Vienna line.
Here I present the project to transform the abandoned railroad bed into a bike path, as already had been done with the old railroads of the Dolomites and the Mincio, which have become locations for new bike paths.
The part of the bike route that follows the old railroad is now almost complete (2011); there remain only some sections that still run on local roads, open to traffic. The bike path starts at Resiutta near Moggia Udinese and for the most part parallels the new train tracks as far as Pontebba and Ugovizza, where there is a long detour to get to the pass at Camporosso, which marks the high point of this route; then the bike path heads toward Tarvisio, passes by the old train station of Tarvisio and continues on the former railroad line as far as the tunnel below Coccau. Here the old railroad is abandoned and the bike path continues as far as the border on old local roads, with many ups and downs and a very steep final descent, which ends right at the piazzale [open space] in front of the old customs house.
Now in Austrian territory one follows along a wide bike lane along the federal highway, which concludes just before the village of Arnoldstein. If one wishes to continue to Villach one must either pedal along the federal highway, where there is almost always a narrow bike lane, or follow the bike path along the river Gail, which starts just past the Arnoldstein train station on an unpaved road, in some locations is hardly more than a footpath, but is paved in the final section, and which takes one directly to Villach and then to Drava where one can connect with the Drauradweg.