Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe programme is one of the emblematic initiatives in the field of culture of the Council of Europe, an international intergovernmental organization. The Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe are grassroots networks that, among other things, promote the principles and values of the Council of Europe such as human rights, cultural democracy and cross-border exchanges. The basis for the establishment of cultural routes is the cultural heritage associated with Europe and its history. The aim of the work is to examine the relationship between the imagined framework of the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe programme outlined in the key resolutions of the Council of Europe on the one hand, and the framework realized in practice, the everyday life of the concrete cultural route on the other. For this purpose, the documents of the Council of Europe dedicated to cultural heritage and the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe programme were analyzed, and research was carried out on the Women Writers Route (through semi-structured interviews, participant observation and analysis of various sources). The paper concludes that there is a fundamental agreement between the vision of the Council of Europe, the principles of the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe programme, and the perspectives and interests of the participants who implement it in practice. However, various organizational challenges, lack of financial resources and limited support in certain aspects of the program from the Council of Europe and the European Institute of Cultural Routes can be aggravating factors in fulfilling the full potential of young cultural routes such as the Women Writers Route. Also, the paper concludes that cultural routes can be viewed as self-creating and self-governing entities that (in)directly implement the authorized heritage discourse of the Council of Europe.