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Journal: |
As I was finishing breakfast, a young couple of hikers came into
the guest house to order breakfast. They were watching me
closely as I paid my bill and prepared to leave for my last day.
I'll bet they were starting their second day on the Via Alpina, and
I later regretted not asking them about their plans.
I was
hiking by 8:15am, conscious that it could be a day of difficult
navigation, and double-checked myself for the first few hours as I
climbed over Monte Cocusso (672m). I was hoping to get some
good views to Trieste and the sea, but it was very hazy and Trieste
was visible, but indistinct. As I descended, I lost the trail
and ended up following anything that headed roughly south according
to my compass. The problem was, and continued to be for the
remainder of the day, that there were many more tracks than marked
on the map, using a plethora of marking and numbering systems and
rarely consistent signage.
This first challenge was resolved
satisfactorily when I emerged to cross a main road exactly where I
was meant to be, but later problems took longer to sort out.
The country had become quite dry and Mediterranean, although it was
still limestone Karst country and I frequently passed caves,
sink-holes and gorges. My third navigation error took me a
long way off course, and off the maps I had. The supplied GPS
data was useless, and after stopping for lunch in the shade of a
pine tree on a dry grassy plateau, much of the afternoon was spent
guessing which way to go at each intersection, using occasional
glimpses of Trieste and knowing I should be descending, as guides.
I eventually rejoined the official Via Alpina at the Italian border,
and followed it pretty faithfully all of the way from there,
including a hot transit of an industrial area (30°C according to one
sign) and then a very sweaty last climb along a rocky trail to Santa
Barbara. From there, it was a steady road descent through
suburbia to Muggia, the official end of the Via Alpina. In
typical fashion, the trail-marking petered out near Muggia and the
guide-book gave two places as the end, the Castle and Marconi
Square. I visited both and saw nothing related to the Via
Alpina, so just declared myself finished at 4:45pm in Marconi
Square.
I intended to get a ferry from Muggia to Trieste, a
30 minute ride away, but had over an hour to wait for the next one,
so bought a celebratory gelati (which melted as fast as I could eat
it) and Diet Coke which I consumed in the Square. I then
wandered down to the harbour and caught the 6:05pm ferry for a
pleasant and relaxing trip (I feared I would fall asleep) to
Trieste. Sadly, my navigation problems weren't over and it
took another 45 minutes of hot sweaty and painful walking through
the middle of Trieste and the beautiful people (and there were a lot
of them), before I found the hotel I had pre-booked. The walk
was painful because of significant chafing incurred during the day,
probably because I started with wet jocks and shorts (nothing dried
last night) and this was compounded by the very humid and warm day.
My feet had also suffered from starting out with wet boots and socks
from yesterday's rain. I'm sure I could be smelled from 5
metres away, and pitied the poor lady caught in the small lift with
me after check-in. A shower followed by a short lie on the bed
did wonders and I went out for an evening walk around town and some
dinner.
I have a 3pm flight from Trieste airport to London
tomorrow afternoon and then it's straight into two weeks of
Olympics. I will miss the hiking life, and felt quite sad on
that last descent into Muggia today, but am excited about the
Olympics and then getting home to my loved ones. It has been a
great adventure that exceeded my expectations. I hope to come
back and complete the French/Swiss bits of the Via Alpina I had to
bypass because of too much snow back in May.
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