AA Day 34

Rather than walking back up the same staircase to get to the Alpe-Adria trail, we decided to take the next one along the coast.  We had a pleasant 20 minutes along the promenade, with people out walking, jogging, and swimming.  Then our workout started….  The narrow staircase led round the side of a building and then straight up the hillside, finally levelling out when it reached the railway line.  There was a pedestrian tunnel under the tracks, and then a short section alongside the railway.  The path started upwards again, and then turned into steps.  We finally reached a small road, running along the hillside, having climbed 500 steps.  This took us to a busy road, where we only had a short section to walk, before starting on a track going up the hill.  The gradient on this wasn’t too bad, but it meant each section between the u-turns was quite long.  As we neared the Alpe-Adria trail, we could see it only a few vertical metres above us, but we still had to walk a further 100m on our track, heading in the opposite direction to where we really wanted to go, before they finally merged.  We were now on a wide promenade about 250m above sea level, with views to Trieste and along the coast.  There were many people out walking on this section.  The promenade gradually sloped up, but was flat compared to what we had just climbed.  At the end of it, we crossed a busy road, and entered a small side road.  This ended as it turned into a track.  At this point there were signs and lots of tape saying that the path could not be used because of work being carried out.  There was no alternative route, nobody working, and we could see the end of the taped off area about 50m ahead, so we walked round the barrier, ducked under the tape, and carried on.  Seconds later we were through the forbidden area.  The path meandered through woodland before we crossed a motorway and arrived in a small village.  We stopped here for a drink and a piece of cake.  We now walked through a wooded area, but with lots of walls from the time when the area was cultivated.  Many of these are being repaired.  There were also lots of depressions, some up to 10m deep, and many entrances to caves.  The hotel at the end of the stage seems to be shut for the whole of October, so we stopped in the village of Basovizza, about 5km before the end of the stage.  It’s a small village, but has another huge physics research laboratory located next to it.  The road through the village is very busy, as it seems to be a shortcut from Trieste to Slovenia.  We are actually just a couple of kilometres outside Trieste and went to a fish restaurant this evening; our first choice restaurant was booked out, and even our restaurant was very busy, we assume with people from Trieste.