Into the sea’s embrace

 Day 36 San Giovanni di Duino to Sistiana

Hours walked: 8:30 - 12:00

Kilometres walked: 6.5 on trail (14 total)

Quote of the day: “We did the Alpe Adria Trail!  We did the Alpe Adria Trail!” - us 

We packed up our bags like always and ate a quick breakfast of tea and oat cakes. The kids were excited: even getting them out of bed a little after 7 was easier than usual. We crossed the busy road and felt glad that our stay in San Giovanni di Duino was one night and not a lifetime; the poor town and its beautiful church was probably once a coveted home, before the highways and railways encroached. 

After a brief stroll through a nature reserve, we walked along a shipyard by the water, checking out the yachts in drydock, the machine shops, the leathery fishermen, and generally reveling in the feeling of actually having made it to the sea. We stopped for second breakfast at a little bakery/bistro in the fishing village: a celebratory meal of cake, cake, and croissants. Might need to adjust our diet a bit as all this walking stops. 

Our trail then climbed up a small hill with beautiful views and quiet paths that headed straight into the streets of Duino. We didn’t really linger in Duino, even though it looked fairly cute and had quite the castle; we left Town on Rilke’s Path (named after the poet.) The path followed a high bluff with a sheer drop into the Mediterranean to one side. Inspired by Rilke’s genre of poetry, this trail was closed for awhile as it became a too-popular spot for suicides. The views afforded on this path more than made up for yesterday’s sorry industrial coastline views. 

The small footpath down to Sistiana was very steep, but we were determined to physically meet the Mediterranean. We came down to a rocky beach with no shade and searingly hot stones underfoot. We had no water shoes, which made entering the water a more challenging experience, but all greatly enjoyed our swims; the water was the perfect temperature, cooling us off marvellously in the hot sunshine. Just as some of us were getting ready to stop swimming, and Tova was nowhere near done swimming, she cut her foot on a submerged rock. The gaggle of old ladies sitting nearby looked on with concern as her foot dripped blood onto the beach. It was a bloody ending to our walk. 

We treated ourselves to pizza and iced tea for lunch to mark the occasion, then hiked back up and caught the bus to Trieste. Entering a big city after more than five weeks of nature and small towns was a real shock: so much noise! Traffic! Sour-looking people! Garbage! We quickly headed to a crammed, chaotic gelateria with some of the very tastiest gelato of the entire trip, then had a sweaty exploration of Trieste. We wrapped up our day early as tomorrow we head to Croatia. 

We’ll put a final post about post-trip reflections soon; suffice it to say, we’re all feeling proud, and coping with the sudden changes that the end of an adventure brings.