Parco Provinciale Monte Moria - Cycling in Italy (Piacenza)

Some rides you plan for weeks. Others just hand themselves to you — a still, sunlit morning in the Piacenza Apennines, the kind of light that only shows up for a few weeks each autumn before winter strips the trees bare. This one was the second kind.

This ride traces a quiet climb through the Parco Provinciale del Monte Moria, a forested reserve straddling the ridge between Val d'Arda and Val Chero, just above the towns of Lugagnano Val d'Arda and Morfasso. It's one of the oldest protected woodlands in the Piacenza Apennines — the park was formally established back in 1925, when the province and its local comuni set out to safeguard a stretch of chestnut forest that had been worked and lived in for generations. Some of those chestnut trees are genuinely centuries old, gnarled and twisted into shapes that look almost sculpted, and in November they turn the whole hillside into a wall of copper and gold.

There's a stranger layer of history under the tarmac, too: this pocket of the Apennines sits on hydrocarbon-rich ground, and the area around Monte Moria was actually drilled for oil and gas up until the mid-20th century — a reminder that these peaceful hills once had a working, industrial life most visitors never think about. And if the scenery looks familiar, it might be because RAI filmed part of the popular period drama La Freccia Nera ("The Black Arrow") here decades ago.

No suffering, no intervals today — just a bike, an empty road, and one of the best autumns I've had on camera. If you've ever chased good light on two wheels, you'll know exactly why I stopped pedaling more than a few times just to look around.

More climbs, descents, and slow rides through the Piacenza Apennines and beyond are coming — subscribe and come along for the next one.

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