Some of the comments about this stage of the trail on the Alpe Adria trail app are a bit disparaging. So I wasn’t holding out particularly high hopes for it.
With low expectations, it turned out actually to be a decent day’s walking for the most part, despite ending up being quite a lot longer than the distance I was expecting. Like yesterday, there was still quite a lot of road walking, but it didn’t feel so tedious somehow, maybe because the stretches along road arose in shorter bursts, separated by time walking on paths and tracks. Also, even by the end of the day, the trouble I’d had later on yesterday with my knees didn’t recur, for which I was grateful.
I got off to a nice early start this morning, but even at 8:00 it was still incredibly hot. I’m not sure what it’s normally like in this part of the world at this time of the year, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, as in much of Europe, the intensity of the heat is greater than usual here. I’ve certainly never encountered temperatures like this in Europe so early in the day.
The hotel I’d been staying in had been a little out of town, before I reached Cormons, so it was only today that I actually saw what the place looked like, although the church tower, as in most places, had been prominent. Of course, what shortened yesterday’s walk added to today’s one and partly accounted for the greater distance I actually walked compared to the published distance for this stage of the hike.
Soon after leaving Cormons a short steep path led up and into some woodland. The next hour or so was mainly on shaded woodland tracks, although I knew from what I’d read this wouldn’t last. Before long I was back amongst the vineyards again. This time, though, there were some little breaks, and even the weather briefly eased when the sun popped behind a cloud and a bit of breeze arrived.
It wasn’t to last though and soon the sun was beating down again. When I think that last week I was doing some long ascents and descents in this sort of heat, 33 or 34 C, it’s a relief to know that the rest of the hike, and especially today’s stage, were going to be really quite flat by comparison. Even a little ascent, when temperatures are in the 30s, brings up a sweat and it isn’t long before you become really dehydrated. Today it was manageable.
For the first time in a while, I passed a lake. Unlike many of the dry rivers I had seen lately, it looked reasonably full. Unfortunately the lake was largely sealed off behind fences, bushes and ‘private’ notices and it looked like it was reserved for club fishing. I had only occasional glimpses of it through gaps in the trees – a bit of a shame I felt.
Then It was back on the road and I passed through a sprawling town, San Lorenzo Isontino, which, on its outskirts, had another big cemetery.
I’ll be honest – I rather like cemeteries and churchyards. I find them peaceful places. I know our local one, even during the height of covid lockdowns, when local parks were heaving with people, was a bit of a sanctuary of peace and quiet. It was the same here.
Cemeteries and churchyards are also ideal for finding a shady seat for lunch on a hot day when seats in the shade are in short supply. So that’s where I sat today, with the occasional relative or friend of the departed coming to pay their respects, and to water the flowers on the graves.
Beyond the cemetery, I passed a museum of rural life, which only apparently opens once or twice a week for a couple of hours, before passing under a motorway via an underpass. On the other side I met the Isonzo river – none other than the Soca in the guise of an Italian name. It was only a week since I’d last walked alongside it, before first crossing the border into Italy, but it felt more tamed here, less rugged, and was surrounded by scrubland rather than the backdrop of the Karavanke mountains.
Despite the river’s proximity to the motorway, people were still enjoying the waters here, although in nothing like the numbers I saw when it was the Soca, not the Isonzo, back near Bovec last week. It was still recognisably the same river though, with its distinctive blue -green colour (clear water and the nature of the river bed? I’m not sure) and white rocky beaches and paths alongside. Indeed, the path I was following was another white stony path like last week’s near Dreznica and, as before, the instant you started walking on it, you could detect the intensity of the heat reflecting off the ground.
Then, strangely, the path took me back under the motorway and on a fairly pointless detour to a place called Farra d’Isonzo, only to come back and cross the motorway a third time. Here, somehow, I lost the track and ended up taking a bit of a short cut, along a busy road, luckily with space to walk alongside the carriageway. Finally I arrived in Gradisca d’Isonzo and my hotel.
For an English traveller you cannot imagine the joy in finding not only did this hotel room have air conditioning, but it was the first in five weeks to have a kettle and a selection of teabags. The things you miss about home!
Tomorrow as I write, is still a bit uncertain. There are areas affected by recent, but currently extinguished, wildfires ahead and it looks like stage 33 is entirely closed. I am taking advice from Simona, the very helpful lady at the Tarvisiano tourism agency, who has made all of the arrangements for me on the second half of this trip, before I decide exactly what to do. I know I won’t be hiking the whole of what I’d originally planned to do tomorrow, but I’m hoping I can walk a short way along a pretty route known as the Rilke path, if only for a couple of hours. We’ll have to wait and see.
Across the Alps to the Adriatic 