Farewell Slovenia

Day 33: Smartno to Cormons

 

Hours walked: 8:30-2:30

Kilometres walked: 19

Quote of the day: “This looks like the perfect place to eat sushi!” -Zadie, in a drizzle, on a busy industrial road, pointing to a rock beside a parking lot entrance. 

We were all glad to have a hotel breakfast after our light improvised dinner last night. Knowing we’d already eaten our lunch, Jakob took this to heart and ate two square meals at once. Full of bread, eggs and cherry strudel, we set off downhill on a road. Honestly, we didn’t care for the first portion of our day much, as the road had just enough cars passing by at high speed to keep us on our toes. Except, the kids like walking on pavement and they really like yelling, “Car!!” so they seemed content enough with the morning’s walk. 

We walked back into Italy, where we were instantly greeted by a very nice cat, who may or may not have been Italian; we’re not sure where he lives, given his border location.  We’ve back and forthed between Italy and Slovenia enough that the children were only half excited about the border and much more excited about the cat. 

Shortly after crossing into Italy, we came upon a playground which was the perfect spot to eat our small lunch of two apples, granola bars, and some cookies. There was also a water fountain, which was extremely welcome; the morning had been very hot, and after a steep uphill we were all red-faced and pretty sweaty. 

It was nice to enter a nature park because, although it meant another uphill, it was much more enjoyable on quiet single track trails, with trees shading us from the blazing sun. We meandered up and down until we came to a final lookout with a grand view of Cormons and an old, but locked, church. 

A long staircase brought us down the hill into the streets of Cormons, where we immediately felt the eerie sense of having walked onto a deserted movie set: we know most businesses on Italy are closed from 1-3pm, but this town seemed completely dead: no cars, no faces, no cats, no signs of life at all. As we reached the town square a few people appeared, but we never saw a hint of the gaiety that endeared Cividale to us so much. 

We also had the heebie-jeebies about our lodgings for the night, an Airbnb with exactly 0 photos of the rooms whose owner arrived half an hour late to let us in, but it turned to be quite cosy, if smelling rather of cigarettes. A quick trip to the grocery store for raspberries and chocolate made Cormons seem like a much lovelier place. 

Jakob and Zadie went on an evening excursion to the nearby city of Gorizia, to see a doctor about a slightly worrisome infected bite (she’s had a number of ticks, so always good to be safe); but between sushi and gelato, they had a grand time and made it back by 9pm. The other girls watched Hook and now Robin Williams has become a topic of discussion for us all.