The night in the Villa Rilke was way too hot and the air condition (or whatever they called air condition) wasn’t helping at all so we didn’t sleep well. Since breakfast was only at 8 a.m. and we woke much earlier due to the noise from the highway not very far away we had too much time to kill. 😒
If nothing else was really nice at the Villa Rilke at least the breakfast was ok. Rather Italian but we had homemade cake and spicy muffins, too.
Still, we didn’t waste too much time and ate rather quickly before we headed off at 8.20 a.m.
We were very happy that the famous Rilke Path along the Coast between Duino and Sistiana was – in contrary to our guidebook – reopened again. It only took us about 1km on the street to get there and the path really lives up to its reputation!
It’s along the coast on forest and stony paths with a lot of gorgeous lookouts to the sea and at first to the castle Duino. It was early in the morning so there were very few other people around and we enjoyed 1,7km of quiet, wonderful hiking. The only thing that spoilt the experience was the fact that you could hear the highway all the time. Not very loud but still, the noise was there.
After the end of the path we emerged on a busy street and had some 100 metres to and through Sistiana. On the way before heading out of this busy little tourist spot we stopped at a bakery and bought some more water and two lovely nice mignons (petits fours) for the way. Ok, it lasted 10 seconds after leaving the bakery. 😂
Afterwards the path led, still on the street, over the highway and through the suburban surrounding. But very soon we reached a nice 4×4/forest path which led through the Karst and some forest area. It started to rain a bit but that was rather good because it wasn’t so hot anymore with the sun gone. Every once in a while the path led shortly through a tiny village before heading along woodland again. So it was very enjoyable and easy to hike. We even hiked a few kilometres along the border between Italy and Slovenia and saw back to Cormòns etc. Somewhere in-between the region rather looked like alpine pastures – if we wouldn’t have walked at only 350m!
Around noon we returned to the street again and soon reached Sgonico where we stopped at the trattoria Guštin, a place our guidebook highly recommended. The food was great and the staff very friendly. The young waitress spoke English incredibly good! And it was so funny to see that while obviously the grandmother was sitting inside peeling the potatoes the grandfather sat outside with a beer peeling the garlic. 😁Definitely a family restaurant. 😉
After lunch we walked on the street for 3,5km but it wasn’t too bad because there was next to no traffic. Only the bus passed us with enormous speed a few times.
Then we weren’t too far from Prosecco anymore and entered again a very nice forest area. For nearly the rest of the way, more than 2km, we hiked along this beautiful and comfortable path before we suddenly arrived in Prosecco. 😁
Altogether it was such an easy, comfortable hike that we were rather surprised and pleased.
Prosecco isn’t very big and the name sounds more awesome than the real thing but after a bit of running around we found our accomodation, the Air B&B AI Tre Fichi from Luciano, in a very quiet residential area. He was already waiting for us and had a lady with him for translation. That was sweet. 😁 After we were shown our 80m2 apartment (we even were provided with fruits, fresh juice, milk and something for breakfast) we had a shower and hung around a bit eating fruits and doing the laundry (clean clothes are awesome 😂) before the tiny supermarket was open again and we could stock up our reserves again. And something to nibble in the evening. 😉
Some figures for today:
- 25,6km
- 490m up
- 270m down
- Hiking time: 5h 12m