It was after the conference " Culture and Region " organised in Florence in May 1987 - by the Council of Cultural Co-operation and the Standing Conference of Local and Regional Authorities - that the theme of Silk was elected as a cultural route in 1998.

The initial thought was related to the role of silk in the European economy, culture and trade, as well as to the relationship between Europe and the Orient.

goals and objectives

One of the goals of the route was to end up establishing trajectories based on visits of historic sites, museums and cultural and industrial places that emphasise the cultural heritage and the old and current trade flows connected to textiles and the know-how that comes with them. The actions organised are at the same time of artistic, scientific and patrimonial nature. They also aim at reviving craft and industrial production. Since its election, the topic has attracted the adhesion of a great number of experts who brought their competence and contribution to the concrete implementation of cultural routes, to the organisation of conferences and the drafting of reports. The experts' work in particular made it possible to rediscover and valorise a little known history of the role of silk in Europe, whose characteristics have remained hidden by more outstanding historical facts related to the Silk Roads from East to West.

multidisciplinary meetings

Since 1987, seven great meetings for " launching " national or regional routes have taken place. They were connected with other purely scientific meetings aiming at giving progress reports on research in the field of silk. This theoretical and practical knowledge made it possible to connect experts from various countries with local authorities, agents from the economic sectors concerned, and tourism professionals. In 1988, the first meeting in Como, Italy, made it possible to bring together all the Italian experiments and to present the first two general reports on silk in Europe. Since then, two regional working routes were the subject of various actions, one in the area of Como/Lecco North of Milan and the other in the province of Cuneo in the Italian Piedmont.

In 1989, a second meeting took place in Nîmes, France. It made it possible to present the Cévenole experiment and it inaugurated the route " The Silk Ways ". This route was the subject of several publications, from which a guide of the Silk Ways appeared in 1993, with a second edition in 1995. In 1990, the conference in Bursa, Turkey, made it possible to give a progress report on the situation of silk in this country. A programme of restoration and development of the caravanserais was launched by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. It led in 1994 to the opening of the road of the caravanserais in Iznik. Other tourist route projects were carried out. In 1991, after a conference in Barcelona, Spain, giving a report on the census of the places of silk in Spain, the Spanish route was officially launched. Since then, the Spanish commission for silk continued its research. The results were the subject of regular meetings, and the 1994 Valencia meeting made it possible to connect scientists and persons in charge of museums and collections of silk trade. The proceedings of this conference were published.

In 1992, it was in Macclesfield in the United Kingdom, close to Manchester, that the fifth conference took place. This meeting enabled the presentation of completed work on Macclesfield Heritage and Museum Centre and the official launching of the English project. The English Commission proposed four cultural routes of which that of Macclesfield is the most successful. The various research and projects under development have been the subject of many publications since 1984. In 1992, a census of the textile mills of East Cheshire was undertaken together with the Royal Commission of Historic Monuments. In 1993, the sixth seminar that marked the launching of the Greek section of the routes of the Council of Europe was held in Soufli and in the Evros delta in Greece. Greece chose the map of an alternative route combining a historical identity marker, the silk, and the quality of the natural environment. Since then, a silk-worm breeding establishment was restored and converted into a rural lodging.

Restorations of the silk Manufacture of Athens (Metaxourgion) were undertaken in 1995, in order to transform the whole area into a living centre. Greece plans to develop studies on silk, to publish these results and to improve the co-ordination of projects at national level. It projects to found a silk institute in Soufli to support the rebirth of sericulture.

Finally, in 1994 the areas in the North and Centre of Portugal accommodated the seventh conference on the cultural routes of the Council of Europe, mainly centred on the role of silk and textiles as structuring elements in regional economy. The meeting was the springboard for the official launching of the Portuguese silk route, centred on an area strongly related to sericulture. In 1995 the thematic expansion of the project to cotton made it possible to include the cotton Valley of Ave and Great Porto as a second route of the Portuguese project.

In 1996 a feasibility study was carried out concerning the development of a cotton route in this Valley, with an information centre inside the future museum of industry. Restorations were undertaken on the site of Chacim, an old silk mill developed as an archaeological site. A museum was set in Macedo de Cavaleiros, an industrial museum is to in Porto, envisaged to valorise the ethnographic museum of Mirandela. A folder presenting the heritage and production related to silk was published in 1996.