By bicycle along the Naviglio della Martesana, from the Cassina de' Pomm Garden to the Adriano Park
The route can be done entirely by bicycle in a landscape that runs almost exclusively along the Naviglio della Martesana, built in the mid-1400s by Francesco Sforza and used for more than 400 years for navigation and the transport of goods. Taking advantage of the opportunity to transport bicycles on the subway during the weekend, you can get off at the Gioia stop on the MM2 and take via M.Gioia in a north-east direction up to via Tirano, where the Cassina de' Pomm Garden is located, a very pleasant and peaceful green oasis.
Near the playground you can see a majestic poplar (Populus nigra) born spontaneously; a beautiful group of hawthorns (Crataegus spp.) with bright spring blooms surrounds the bowling green. The park is bordered by the Martesana, in whose waters many beautiful flowering shrubs are reflected, and by the cycle/pedestrian path that leads, with a short detour, to the Adriano Park. You must leave the canal at via F. Aporti and take the underpass, take via Popoli Uniti, pass along viale Monza until you reach the Hotel Concorde, and then take via G. Puecher which leads back to Martesana.
For those with sufficient energy it is possible to make a small detour to visit the Villa Finzi Park, in the village of Gorla, with access from via Sant'Elembardo, created in the early 1800s as the splendid setting of a country villa. The route along the Martesana winds pleasantly through an alternation of old renovated farmhouses, period villas with gardens, modern residential architecture and runs alongside the former Martesana Park now Iraqi Martyrs of Freedom Victims of Terrorism, a large green space with fields basketball court, dog area, rest areas, leisure areas, including a particular play area, expanses of lawns and numerous varieties of trees (different species of maples, hornbeams, flowering cherries, oaks, liquidambar, elms, paulownias, oaks and lime trees). The vegetation along the banks of the Martesana is partly spontaneous (locust trees, elderberries, fig trees and reeds).
The rows of beautiful purple-leaved flowering cherry trees (Prunus pissardii) and ornamental shrubs along the towpath path have recently been supplemented with 70 young trees. Once you reach Piazza Costantino, leave the Naviglio and take Via Adriano, then at the first traffic light take the first street on the right, Via P. Nenni and, subsequently, the second on the left, Via G. Saragat, which will lead to the entrance to the Park. Adrian. The park, with a sober contemporary design, completes the neighborhood of the same name that recently emerged on the area once occupied by Magneti Marelli, on the border with Sesto San Giovanni. The vast meadows and a small hill are completed by rows of young maples, groves of young oaks, more mature specimens of willows with beautiful silver leaves, poplars, rows of large plane trees and patches of ornamental shrubs which ensure a pleasant continuity in the blooms: forsythia and mahonia, different species of viburnum, lonicera and cotoneaster, ground cover roses, small nandinas with leaves that turn purple red in the autumn period.
