Projects

PROJECT FOR UPGRADING SIGNAGE ON THE HIKING NETWORK

The Project in question stems from a concrete analysis carried out on the feedback obtained from users of the Maira Valley trails and from the strong awareness that the hiking network is an undisputed asset, as well as the main tourist attraction, of this territory.

The Maira Valley Tourist Consortium, aware that this network needs a coordinated intervention aimed at improving signage, launched a Competition in order to identify the most suitable Project for this purpose.

A Project that in the horizon of about 5 years aims at the support and improvement of signage. The official references for such signage implementation are the Piedmont Region guidelines and CAI regulations. The goal is to intervene on hiking signage by improving its functionality, consistency and legibility, but without burdening the landscape with excessive or redundant signage.

Following the evaluation of the 8 selected projects (out of 15 applications received) carried out by a special Commission (Consorzio Turistico-Unione Montana Valle Maira-CAI Cuneo, Dronero subsection), the project evaluated and unanimously selected as the most suitable for the assignment turned out to be the one presented by the company Walden s.r.l of Saluzzo [www.walden.srl].

It was also the care of the Tourist Consortium to submit the Competition and the selected Project to the attention of the Territorial Administrations and the Maira Valley Mountain Union, receiving their cooperation.

The complete project can be consulted upon request at the Tourist Office/Valley Gate of Dronero.

This project will also be a natural continuation of the activities already carried out in support of the hiking network.

Itineraries subject to intervention

Therefore, the routes subject to intervention will be:

No. 66 routes already subject to cartographic intervention of dedicated funding (list and routes available on GoogleDrive);
Track named “Percorsi Occitani”;
Track named “Sentiero Italia CAI” and track named “Sentiero GTA”;
Tracks featured in the guides Morellini and Kompass “Valle Maira”.

Hospitality and services Guide

Our Maira Valley Hospitality Guide is a complete and comprehensive printed product, in which are included all hospitality proposals in the valley and for all types of services required.

A careful selection of points of interest, of top itineraries for the lower, middle and upper valley, of typical and artisan products of the valley, of services offered on site, will guide the reader to discover the Maira Valley destination through a practical and beautiful support, far from the usual screens!

A valid and precise support to the tourist to guide him to the discovery of the valley and to the choice of the most suitable accommodation to his expectations, giving the right visibility to the facilities that offer hospitality in the valley.

Stop by one of the Maira Valley tourist offices and ask for a copy: your trip to the valley will start right from the cover!

Stop by one of the Maira Valley tourist offices, or at the ATL of Cuneo, and request a copy: your trip to the valley will start right from the cover!

Maira Valley hiking map (66 trails)

We present here the draft hiking map of the Maira Valley. The map has a scale of 1:25000, by far the most popular with tourists and walkers of all ages and levels of fitness. In detail, the hiking map-printed front and back on waterproof and durable Pretex paper backing, 90×100 size, with a customized cover-reproduces the territory of the Maira Valley. Upper-Middle Valley on the front, Lower-Middle Valley on the back.

The territorial base is extracted from the Valle Maira 1:25 000 map by Escursionista Editore (front and back), complete with rocks, scree and highlighting, with fully customized graphic elaboration for the Maira Valley Tourist Consortium including highlighted routes and graphic layouts with practical information of 66 well-known and popular hiking routes in the area, routes that were designed with the help of CuneoTrekking, a well-known and established local reality regarding services supporting hiking.

The hiking map with the 66 trails we customized is in fact a project that already dialogues with the already completed project of redoing the Maira Valley signage: with it, we have affixed tourist information signs in strategic areas of our territory with these same 66 trails and additional information shown.
This is because we intend to give a coherent and univocal image of our territory from the point of view of hiking and tourist support, the graphics and style of the texts of the hiking map and of the signage already present and located in the territory are in fact consistent and integrated.

Inside the map there is then a QR-code that allows you to connect to our platform vallemaira.org in the hiking section; from there you can view the digital version of the trails and download – eventually and free of charge – their gpx tracks.

We believe that this realization will have great prominence, both because it will be in continuity with the already highly appreciated work of redoing the signage. But especially because we know how much such a product was missing in our area, which is so much marked by the tourist offer of the trekking-hiking sector.

Accessibility Project

The Maira Valley continues to expand its horizons and focuses on accessibility as a goal and strength. The first step is to allow the use of its natural, historical, architectural and cultural heritage in an increasingly wide and varied way to all categories of people.

The first project that we carry out in this direction is expressly aimed at people with visual impairment, in particular visually impaired and blind/blind people. A project that was born with the actions of which we will talk here below but that – in a long-term perspective – will tend to gradually expand and further involving the Valmairese area and the municipalities that constitute it.

Therefore, the “first stage” of the new inclusive accessibility line that the Maira Valley is following starts from Villar San Costanzo, and more precisely from the Ciciu del Villar Nature Reserve. Here, in this context of geological-naturalistic value, the project actions aim to make the area of the reserve accessible and accessible to the visually impaired, as well as to the motor disabled, thus constituting a complementarity of project actions aimed at accessible use.

In detail, the accessibility project for the Ciciu del Villar Nature Reserve in the municipality of Villar San Costanzo includes installations of 3 panels with tactile images (images printed with relief illustrations that realistically reproduce the edges of the figures so as to allow blind/blind and visually impaired people to figure the image in the mind allowing the association between tactile representation and corresponding object) and codes with NFC technology (Near Field Communication, translatable into “communication in proximity”, a technology capable of connecting two devices, located a short distance from each other, in wireless mode) allowing users with visual disabilities to access multimedia content such as audio-presentations that will allow in-depth analysis of natural, historical, architectural and cultural heritage.

The first 3 installations are dedicated respectively:

1) to the geological formation of the so-called “stone fungi”; in detail it will be placed near the first formation of the ciciu that is met once entered the Reserve (the so-called formation “the family”)
2) to the church/sanctuary of San Costanzo al Monte, one of the most interesting Romanesque monuments, and at the same time one of the least known of the Region
3) to the Ex Abbazia di San Pietro in Vincoli, an ancient Benedictine abbey now a church, with the 11th century Benedictine crypt and the funeral chapel dedicated to the abbot Giorgio Costanzia of Costigliole built in 1450.

On these 3 installations went to integrate the “second stage,” the second part of the project – aimed at improving and increasing accessibility towards users with hearing and visual impairments – through the creation of videos dedicated to the 3 attractions mentioned above with audio track and subtitles in both Italian and English, integrated with supporting audio/video guides in LIS (Italian Sign Language) and IS (International Sign Language), made accessible on the same tactile panels with QR-codes that link to the YouTube page of the Museo Diffuso Cuneese, which kindly consigned the original videos. The audio/video guide integrations in LIS and IS were made with the fundamental contribution of the Ente Nazionale Sordomuti – Sezione Provinciale Cuneo and the filming company Vdea Produzioni.