Day 41 – from Gradisca d’Isonzo to Duino

Today we’d be having the longest of all stages on the AAT – this in the hottest day we’ve had so far in this altitude. It’s one thing when you hike at 1500m or higher with 35°C somewhere down below, but then it’s totally different when you’re at sea level in the South. So we had quite some respect of this day… 

But first breakfast at the Al Ponte was great! We had asked the guy at the reception if we could have breakfast at 6.30 already and it was no problem. Only that the chef de cuisine didn’t know about it and was quite surprised when we turned up half an hour in advance. 😉 But he was ok with it and we stuffed ourselves with lots of homemade sweet stuff like apple pie and other cakes, muesli and they even had real bread! 😎

At 7.10 a.m. we started along the street to the AAT starting point which was unfortunately 1,5km off our hotel. Already now it was quite warm and humid.

After we were at the starting point we headed upwards through the forest on a beautiful path to the Monte San Michele which was a war zone during the battle of the Isonzo between Austria and Italy. Now there’s a museum up here.

On the way up we found really great art work on some stone walls at houses before we headed into the forest:

On the Monte San Michele it was very quiet at 8.15 a.m. and we had a great view down to Gradisca d’Isonzo, probably even Cormòns and the whole region:

The tree lined road to the museum was also really nice:

But those were kind of the only highlights of this stage. The way down was still quite ok, mainly through the forest.

We hiked through San Martino del Carso:

And on the way I also took a picture for my mum from pomegranates, unfortunately not ripe yet 😉:

From there we hiked mostly along the Karstplateau for 5km and then an incredibly steep way down which was really annoying. It was even partly secured with steel cables.

Then we should have reached the lake Lago di Doberdo. Only that we never saw any lake. Must have been hidden behind a lot of undergrowth and reed.

After this disappointment we stopped at an abandoned stone house for a short break.

The path led somewhat strangely confusing through undergrowth and the forest before we headed uphill again. Then downhill. It was getting very hot and the shadows were becoming scarce. And we steadily thirstier.

Down the Monte Debeli the markings suddenly got very random and not very reasonable and we couldn’t find the correct path at all. So we stumbled through some rather overgrown beaten path until we were on the right track again. Then the path went uphill and downhill again before we arrived in Iamiano.

Up to now we’ve already hiked 21km and were really thirsty. We knew that our water reserves wouldn’t last for the rest of the way so we tried to find anything where we could buy water. And luckily there was a little tavern that mainly sells wine from the region where we could get something to drink and even eat. That was really our rescue!!!

Unfortunately we then had to continue in the blazing afternoon sun at 1.30 p.m. The path was ok at first but got very unclear along the way again! We were only a few kilometres off Duino but struggled to find any useful way to get there.

At the marina we wanted to find something to drink again since we were nearly dehydrated. At the only kind of restaurant that was open the stupid waiter didn’t want to sell us anything because “we close now”. When he saw my look he changed his mind but charged us enormously! 😬

After the GPS tracks led nowhere and since there were no markings at all we didn’t give a damn anymore and just went alongside a very well frequented road straight into Duino. 😉

The accomodation, the Villa Rilke, was also very disappointing. The staff was rather unfriendly, the room tiny and the air condition made totally no difference to the temperature of the room. And we had no warm water!

After being fed up with today’s route which the Italians obviously can’t mark well enough (not even after all those years of the trail’s existence – totally in contrast to their Slovenian counterparts) we stayed in our room and ate whatsoever we could find in our backpacks. We certainly must refill tomorrow!!!

Some figures for today (crazy!!!):

  • 33km
  • 710m up
  • 710m down
  • Hiking time: 6h 50m

 

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