Detailed directions about the route can be obtained from the altimetry (last figure of the gallery), from the captions of the individual photos and from the "Google Map" at the bottom right, which can be enlarged as desired. Double clicking on the photos you can view them at the highest resolution.
Description of the route
This route along the Sile River is virtually complete as of 2015; although there isn’t any official signage, except for the section that follows the München-Venezia bike route, we are dealing all the same with a true bike/pedestrian route. Its popular name is Alzaia del Sile [towpath of the Sile]. The first section of the route coincides mostly with an earlier route already described on this website, a bike/pedestrian route that for the most part is unpaved, with a few sections on local roads, but with little traffic.
Upon leaving the train station at Treviso one should head right, more or less following the railroad tracks [as shown on the GPS trace on the map below] and find the beginning of the bike path right below the railroad tracks that head to Udine.
Follow along the Sile as far as a wooden footbridge, which for several years has banned riding bikes across, so that the cyclist needs to dismount and push one’s bike. The bridge crosses through the evocatively-named Cimitero dei Burci [Cemetery of the wooden barges].
After the footbridge one arrives at the village of Casier with a panoramic quay overlooking the river, and continues as far as the village of Lughignano; from here, inaugurated in 2015, there is a new section of bike route that follows the Sile, except for a brief section around Villa Corner Gabbianelli, only because it is set directly along the river.
Upon arriving in Casale sul Sile one leaves the route along the towpath for a while and follows the München-Venezia signs as far as crossing the Sile by way of a catwalk next to the highway bridge; one then continues on the left bank of the river passing by a large brick factory as far as the village of Musestre where one comes to a bridge over the Sile and arrives at Quarto d’Altino.
At Quarto d’Altino one could rejoin the Sile towpath as far as Portegrandi, set on the Venice Lagoon, or head directly for Venice; although there are many routes available, the GPS trace [on the map below] guides one through sparsely populated areas and then past the airport so as to catch the cross-lagoon bridge back to Venice.