Author: alasdair.geo (Page 7 of 13)

Last night we walked to a pizza restaurant in a shopping mall, a short distance from the hotel.  As we approached, we felt as if we were back in the Middle East, as there were groups of Asian men sitting on the grass.  The mall had a discount supermarket, and a shop familiar from the back streets of Abu Dhabi, selling plastic flowers and all sorts of Chinese produced junk.  There were even notices in Arabic in the shops.  The pizza was very good and we saved enough for today’s lunch.

We couldn’t get a bus ticket; the Thai in the bar that sold bus tickets assured us that “you don’t need one to travel in town”, so we walked back into town to the start of the stage.  Today’s stage was going to be long and hot, so we had already identified a few possibilities for short cuts.  The bridge out of town took us over the river Isonzo, which we had crossed many times in Slovenia as the Soca.  We followed the road to San Martino de Carso.  There was a small museum (closed) but the board outside had a photo of the village at the end of WWI.  All the buildings had been reduced to rubble.  The inhabitants had been evacuated to the Austro-Hungarian empire, and only a few chose to return after the war.  We then followed the path through scrubland, passing a memorial to Hungarian soldiers, to the next village, which had also been totally destroyed in WWI.  The village also had a large war memorial, with a red star, dedicated to the partisans who had died between 1943 and 1945.  This area has a very complicated history.

We left the village and again decided to walk along the road.  A short distance along it, there were signs to a walk along the edge of a lake.  The lake’s depth is controlled by the water volume in the nearby rivers, and recent rain, as the whole area is karstified, with hundreds of caves.  As usual, though, we didn’t see the lake because of all the trees and bushes.  We reached Jamiano, and now had to keep to the trail as the built-up area along the coast was approaching.  The path took us back into the woods, which were showing significant damage from last year’s fires.  There was a climb up a hill, and finally we could see the Adriatic, complete with a foreground of railway, motorway, refineries, docks, and other assorted industrial areas.  We crossed the motorway and reached the estuary of the Timavo.  This river flows in Slovenia and then disappears underground for over 40kms before reappearing on the coast.  The path took us around a marina, past an old fishing village, and then uphill into the scrubland again.  Thankfully, this section was short and we soon reached our destination of Duino.

Reading the comments about tomorrow’s stage, the general theme is “too much walking in scrubland again”, so we are planning to follow a Cammino trail along the coast instead.

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!

The Alpe-Adria trail often takes very big loops.  We decided that we didn’t want to walk more than 40kms and finish up only a dozen kilometres south from where we had started.  We therefore decided to walk south to Cormons, effectively combining stages 30 and 31 into one day’s walk.  We walked along the (relatively) quiet road due south from Breg, though this being a Sunday, there were a lot of cyclists on the road.  We had the hills to our left, and the plains on our right.  We walked past numerous vineyards, some with basic buildings, and others with grand houses and entrances.  One woman wished us “buon camino” and we later realised from seeing the signs that we were on a pilgrimage route to somewhere.  As we approached Cormons we left the road and followed a path through the woods.  This had a good stone base, but we couldn’t work out whether it was Roman, Mediaeval, or much later.  This took us to the top of a small hill and then it was down into the town.  We found an excellent ice-cream shop and indulged ourselves, before sitting in the town square, in the shade of the trees.  We then walked back out of town to our hotel, which has seen better days, built in the time of the Austro-Hungarian empire.  The dining room had numerous prints of young Austrian soldiers, and had a huge fireplace (complete with spit) for roasting large animals.  Another print shows the German and Russian (?) high commands.  With the giant chandeliers, it was definitely an experience!

We had breakfast at 8am, and caught the 9:15am bus back into Cividale.  While we were waiting there were numerous cars heading for Cividale to spectate at the race, including a convoy of twelve Ferraris.

We had a stroll around the old part of the town, then went to visit the Lombard chapel.  It dates from the 8^th century (possibly later) and has a number of stuccoes and statues from the 11^th or 12^th century.  It’s now surrounded by a later church and nunnery.  The Lombards are believed to be an itinerant tribe that travelled from Scandinavia, before settling in the area (the Long Beards).

Having done our cultural bit, we started on today’s walk.  The first part was closed due to the race and we therefore walked out of town on the main road; pavement at first, but then we had to dodge cars by getting onto the narrow grass verge.  We had a couple of kms of this, and then turned onto a country lane.  This led through numerous vineyards.  Most had been picked, but there were others still to be harvested.  The path led us through woods which was nice as it was extremely hot.  We stopped for a break before another stretch of road-walking.  This soon took us to another short section of path through woods, before we were back on tarmac again.  This lasted a couple of kilometres, before we had an extremely steep climb up to the end of the stage, back in Slovenia.  Our apartment is about 400m along a track from the restaurant; the sunset should be good again!

We had walked all of today’s route in the opposite direction, in the rain, back in 2018.  We therefore decided to walk down the road to Castelmonte, where we could then get the bus into Cividale and do our washing before heading on to our accommodation.  (I had spent a while trying to book one of the many hotels in Cividale, before being told that there is a big car hill climb taking place this weekend, and that all the accommodation had been booked months ago.  We finally found a wine estate just north of Cividale offering accommodation.)  We were pleased with ourselves as we reached Castelmonte, having walked 13.3km, in in 2.5 hours.  This gave us time to walk round the fortified village, buy bus tickets, and enjoy a coffee and cake.  The bus left exactly at 12:09 and we were in Cividale about 20 minutes later, having seen numerous temporary barriers erected for the hill climb, and some of the 250 cars in the “pit area” at the entrance to the town.  We were soon in the launderette and had time to walk round the town centre, before heading back to the bus station for the 3:08 bus to Togliano.  At 3:09, the board changed to show that the bus had been cancelled.  We therefore had another few kms walk northwards, to reach the small village in the centre of vineyards.  Our accommodation is the most spectacular so far, in a large old building attached to the manor house.  We are the only occupants, and have an enormous sitting room all to ourselves.  (There was a free bottle of estate wine in our bedroom; excellent and soon to be available in the UK.)  We walked to a small trattoria just outside the village, with a spectacular sunset going to, and coming back from it.  We have a short walk tomorrow, so the plan is to take the bus back to Cividale and explore the town, and then walk on to our next stop, back in Slovenia.

We left Tolmin after an early breakfast as we had a big climb ahead of us.  The route was flat and we crossed the Soca river for the last time, before heading for the village of Volce.  This was where the climb started, winding upwards through the trees.  The path was generally good, though there were a couple of places where the track followed a stream, essentially straight up the hillside.  We finally met up with the road again, and had a few more hundred metres of ascent before clearing the trees just below the summit.  There were great views to the north of the Slovenian mountains and also of Tolmin, where we had started.  The path then took us through an area of Italian WWI fortifications, all reconstructed, leaving you to wonder how the attackers, after the huge climb, had managed to overrun the defences.  It was a short walk to the summit, where we could now see Italy before us, though sadly not all the way to the Adriatic due to the haze.  A stone at the summit marked the Slovenian/Italian border and we then quickly dropped down to a road.  A short distance took us to the Italian customs house, unmanned, and the refugio next to it, where we stopped for a cake and a drink.  From there, we continued along the route of the Alpe-Adria, past more defensive positions, before we decided to walk on the road instead.  This was easy walking, downhill, and we only saw a couple of cars and one moped.  We soon reached Tribil di sopra, where we are staying in the local commune’s hostel.  We have a room to ourselves; there’s an Australian couple and a German woman also staying.  The evening meal, cooked by a local family, was a Thai/Indian fusion!

The village used to have over 500 people, now there are 30; the restaurant, two bars, shops, and market, have all closed.

As we were starting in Kobarid, today we followed the Juliana trail to Tolmin.  The Alpe-Adria trail started higher up the mountain (if we had finished there yesterday) and went up and over the mountain to Tolmin; we were going to walk in the valley instead.  We left Kobarid, crossing the Napoleon bridge over the Soca river.  It’s called that because Napoleon marched his troops over it, though it’s been blown up and replaced several times since then.  We had a long walk on reasonably quiet roads through several small villages.  In Austria, these would all have been holiday homes and closed up, here all the houses seemed to be occupied.  Today was hot again and we were glad of any shade from trees.  We didn’t see much of the river as there was always a lot of trees and scrub between us and it.  We stopped to get some shade in the doorway of a church for our lunch stop and chatted to a Swiss man who had also stopped.  He had come all the way from Switzerland and is walking barefoot!  We left the road and walked along a narrow track between stone walls, luckily with lots of trees providing shade.  It wasn’t looking before we were back on roads, and then on a gravel track leading towards Tolmin.  Here, the wind picked up a lot, blowing into our faces, before we reached the town and got shelter.  There was a final climb up to the town centre and our accommodation.  It’s our last night in Slovenia as we cross into Italy tomorrow, and we should see the Adriatic as we cross the mountain pass.  

After a couple of days in Italy, we will be walking along the border, crossing into and out of both countries for several days.

Another day of walking through great mountain scenery, alongside the Soca river.

We knew that much of the trail was closed due to electricity work and had therefore decided to aim for Kobarid, in the valley, rather than Dreznica, up in the hills.  (This also gives us an easy day tomorrow, following the low-level Juliana trail to get to Tolmin)

We left Bovec on a small path, which soon got extremely muddy.  After a few kms of this the track joined a road.  We looked at the map and decided to continue down the road, as the trail on the map appeared to be next to a stream, which we thought would be back to mud underfoot.  We joined up with the Alpe-Adria trail, and had a nice walk alongside the river Soca.  In this section there were areas where every tree had been blown down; later on the taxi driver told us this happened about a month ago.  It was incredible to see such damage.  We did a short section along the road rather than following the trail, saving some distance, and allowing us to walk faster.  Most of the cars were going in the same direction as us, with few coming towards us.  We joined the trail again, this time on the “deviation” due to the engineering works.  It was a pleasant walk alongside the river and through fields, before ending at Srpenica.  We found our German friends and their dog, who assured us we could join them in their taxi transport (they were going to Dreznica and Kobarid was at the river crossing).  The taxi arrived and we all got in.  About 5kms down the road, the taxi stopped and the driver declared that we had arrived.  This wasn’t a concern to us as the route to Kobarid was downhill, but for the Germans it meant about another 10kms and 500m uphill.  There was a bit of discussion, before he agreed to drive them the whole way to Dreznica.  We were dropped off in Kobarid (no charge!) and walked to the hotel.  Kobarid is only 7km from the border with Italy, but we’ve got another couple  of days before we cross over.  After cleaning up we visited the WWI museum, describing the fighting between the Austro-Hungarians and the Italians.  This was a brutal conflict, with men on mountain tops, with the lines only 20m apart in places.  Many died from avalanches during the winter.  The Germans provided reinforcements to the Austro-Hungarians, and finally inflicted a huge defeat on the Italians.  Subsequently, the British and French provided troops to stop the Germans invading more of Italy.  The area, and battle, are immortalised in Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms”.  The museum has a great collection of photos from the war, and is well laid out, giving one a feeling of how dreadful the fighting was in this area; there were several photos of Italians with facial injuries so bad that you wondered how people could have survived or would even want to continue living in that state. 

We had an excellent meal, and are now looking forward to another short, easy day tomorrow.

Breakfast was cold pizza and tea, and then we set off down the road.  Today’s stage follows the river Soca, and we had been told that the path was stony, with lots of tree roots.  We had therefore decided to walk some of the trail on the road, where we can walk at 5kph, rather than 3-4kph on the stony ground.  There was very little traffic, and we soon reached Soca (about 8 km down the road), where we finally crossed the river and onto the path.  The path was good here, wide and flat, with a lot of tourists walking.  There were also several fishermen in the river, which is being restocked with the local trout.  We eventually rejoined the road, and again we walked on it, rather than the narrow footpath.  The river was a fantastic colour pale blue colour, at times wide, and other times rushing through narrow gorges.  For the final few kilometres we again followed the path, crossing yet more footbridges over the river.  We finally reached Bovec, spotting our hotel on the outskirts of town.  We walked into town for dinner; the town is surrounded by mountains, and was full of mountain bikers, climbers, canoeists, and walkers.  We’ve seen more people with rucksacks this evening, than in the whole 24 days since we started the walk!  Tomorrow should be a short day, as much of the trail is shut for electricity work.  We hope to get a lift, where necessary, with the Germans’ transport.

After the rain over the mountains yesterday, the forecast for today was sunny intervals, which was good as we had a high pass to cross.  The walk left Kranjska Gora on a nice wide path, past a couple of lakes (with lots of tourists taking photos) and then alongside the river.  The gradient was gentle, the path was good, and we made fast progress.  We crossed one dry river bed, and then the path started climbing towards the main road.  We reached the Russian chapel (built by Russian WWI prisoners who were building the road over the pass), and then stopped for a rest.  The path then worked its way up the hillside alongside a stream, with several crossings on broken planks and across stones, before finally joining the road again at a large carpark.  We stopped at the café for a coffee, which was terrible, and then started uphill again on the old donkey trail.  This showed on the map as several zigzags, but was actually easy going on a wide path with a gentle gradient.  We even cut up the hillside in places in small paths to shorten some of the zigs and zags.  We stopped to put our fleeces on, as there was a strong, cold wind blowing from the north.  A short while later, and we were at the top of the pass, along with everyone who had driven up.  We didn’t stay long before starting the descent as it was quite cold.  We now had impressive views of the mountains to the south of us, after enjoying the equally impressive northern views.  After a short section of road walking, the path dropped into the woods, and we followed it for a large part of the descent, on a mixture of good path, and narrower paths with the usual stones and tree roots.  We finally got to what we thought was the valley, only for another section along the river, followed by a climb and then a steep descent to Trenta, which has about a dozen houses.  On this final descent we had to cover our packs and put rain jackets on as the rain started.

We are in an apartment, and went across the road for a pizza and a drink.  There was also a huge tourist office, where we bought some postcards.  We’re hoping to get something for breakfast at the village shop, otherwise it will be a few pieces of cold pizza.