AA Day 31

We left the hotel and walked through the town Cormons.  It was 9am on a Monday morning and there was nobody about apart from a few dog walkers.  We assume school must have started very early.  After a short walk out of town the trail branched off into the woods.  Every so often we had views across the vineyards.  The trail then took us round and through many vineyards.  Most had been harvested, but the black grape harvest was in progress.  While many vineyard buildings were fairly plain, there were a few large grand buildings, complete with big gates and long drives.  We left the vineyards and walked alongside a small canal, stopping to look at the outside of a small barracks building that had been built at the start of the Cold War.  Although closed up, it did look in full working order.  A small road took us into the village of San Lorenzo Isontino where we found a bar open and stopped for a soft drink.  Everyone else was enjoying their midday glass of wine.  From here the trail continued south and east, but we decided to cut about 3km out by following the road to the SW.  This road was very quiet (apart from a fire engine with lights flashing) and had a pavement and then a wide strip of grass between the road and the vineyard.  We only had a short section of walking on road as we entered Farra d’Isonzo and joined the Alpe-Adria route again.  We crossed under the motorway (leading from the Adriatic to Slovenia) which had far more lorries than cars, and paralleled it for a short distance before the track turned south again and led us into the suburbs of Gradisca d’Isonzo.  We were glad to reach there as it was getting very hot.  We entered the old town through one of the old gateways and walked into a largely vehicle-free zone, with many fine old buildings.  A short distance later we reached the end of the stage and stopped at a nearby café for an ice-cream and drink.  Our hotel was on the edge of town, so we walked the extra 1.7km to it, passing a thermometer showing 31C.  We will take the bus back into town tomorrow; it’s a long stage without adding to it!