News

New EuroVelo 13 Project Kicks Off in Poland

Created/updated 30.04.2014 17:40
New EuroVelo 13 Project Kicks Off in Poland, Vidzeme Tourism Association

The partners in a brand new EU-Funded project related to the northern section of EuroVelo 13 – Iron Curtain Trail gathered in Warsaw this week for the Kick Off Meeting.

The meeting started with speeches from Ms Katarzina Sobierajska, the Polish Minister of Sport and Tourism and Michael Cramer MEP, widely known as the ‘godfather’ of the Iron Curtain Trail.

The ECF is the lead partner in the 332,000 Euro, 18-month project, which officially started on 1st April and will finish at the end of September 2015.  The project is co-financed by the European Union under the preparatory action “Sustainable Tourism“.

The focus of the project is the northern section of the Iron Curtain Trail (ICT).  The ICT is the long-distance cycle route that follows the border of the ‘Iron Curtain’, which forcibly divided Europe into East and West for half a century.  At 10,400 km, the ICT is the longest route of EuroVelo, the European cycle route network.

The project aims to:

  • develop transnational thematic cycling tourism package offers along the ICT;
  • promote and communicate the ICT and the new packages; and
  • to facilitate public-private partnerships and the integration of tourism-related enterprises.


There are 14 partners in the consortium from 9 different countries:

  • European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) – Belgium
  • Karelia University of Applied Sciences – Finland
  • CityBike – Estonia
  • Latvian Tourism Development Agency – Latvia
  • Vidzeme Tourism Association – Latvia
  • BalticBike – Lithuania
  • ADFC Mecklenburg-Vorpommern – Germany
  • ADFC Saxony-Anhalt – Germany
  • ADFC Thünringen – Germany
  • Pomeranian Association Common Europe (PSWE) – Poland
  • Polish Tourist Organisation – Poland
  • Nadace Partnerstvi – Czech Republic
  • South Moravia Destinantion Agency – Czech Republic
  • Weinviertel Tourismus – Austria

Most partners were represented at the Kick Off Meeting in Warsaw.  As well as the successful meeting the hosts organised a series of side events related to the theme of the Cold War, including a tour of the main buildings and monuments from that era in a vintage bus!

As written before, during the last two years a substantial work has been done to improve the EuroVelo 13 cycling infrastructure in Northern Latvia (Vidzeme). More information available here!

EuroVelo 13 - Iron Curtain Trail promotional video of Vidzeme (Northern Latvia) is available here!

Photos and article republished from EuroVelo.org

Back