Grado and Aquileia

Wednesday July 8

Time to start making our way home. After hiking all the way to the Adriatic, we thought we should be on the Adriatic. Instead of getting on a train, we walked to the harbor. Santuario Santa Maria Maggiore was on the way.

Rowers were rowing while we waited for a ferry...

...and set off for Grado. S's parents had moored a boat in Grado for a few years when he was a toddler, and he had vivid memories of wandering around the harbor on his own when he was four or five, slipping from a boat launch into the sea, and then showing up back on the family boat soaking wet. He hadn't been back to Grado since.

On our way out of Trieste, the ferry passed the largest sailboat in the world. One hundred meters tall, and 144 meters long, it's owned by a Russian oligarch from whom Italy confiscated it as part of sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine. Italy is required by law to maintain the property, at a cost of a couple million Euros a year. Oof.

Empty, expensive toy of an oligarch

As we ferried north, we had views of the Alps, and the river valley gap where Tolmezzo lies.

As we arrived in Grado, S said, "there it is, that's where I fell in." It's changed a bit in the past 58 years, but he thinks it's in front of the white boat shop in the center of the photo below. Ah, nostalgia.

Because of nostalgia, I had booked a hotel months in advance on the small inner harbor. As we walked toward the center of town, S wistfully informed me about the sights: "...and there's a small inner harbor," he said. "Ya don't say," I said. I kept calling it "the small inner harbor" for the rest of the trip, and I'm still calling it "the small inner harbor" in this blog post, because sometimes when someone states the obvious, it calls for reinforcing.

The channel leading into the small inner harbor

As it was only 9am or so, we were far to early to check in at our hotel on the small inner harbor. We had a small breakfast at a cafe, dropped off our bags at the hotel, and started walking north to Aquileia. Founded in 181 BCE, Aquileia had become one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the Roman Empire by the 2nd c. CE. 

Our plan was to visit museums and archeological sites during the day, then spend an unscheduled evening and the next morning back in Grado before catching a but to the train station north of Aquileia and heading back to Germany.

Nets, boats, and a bicycle along the canal

Aquileia is about eight miles north of Grado; the first 3.5 miles cross the Grado Lagoon.

The road is popular with bicyclists. We didn't see any other walkers.

Tide was low as we were crossing, which meant the large colony of egrets on the west side of the causeway had solid land to stand on. 

We paused for a bit on a bench under this tree.

Check out my nice soft cashmere socks with no holes in the toes.

The next 4.5 miles were mostly flat and green. Not much to see. We paused to buy plums at a fruit stand that closed at noon, minutes after we arrived.

Aquileia's economic success was as a river and sea port. While it was never directly on the sea, it's now a good 10km inland, the result of centuries of sedimentation, shifting rivers, and human land engineering (building canals and draining wetlands). In its heyday, the city had over 100,000 inhabitants; today, 3,100.

We oriented ourselves by beginning at the archeological museum. Mosaics were the highlight.

Carly liked the rooster

What do you do with all the statuary lying around? When you find new pieces, they're cataloged and go into storage.

The mosaic below would have fit in well among Mathemalchemy's mice symmetries. (The interwebs say the critters are more likely birds. Perhaps the mouse tails are crows' feet?)

The museum also housed sculptures, in whole and in part.

1st c. plinth with Jupiter Ammon

1st c. plinth with Medusa

Check out her sakes!

The mosaic detail was amazing. In the photo below: some of the tiles were smaller than my pinky fingernail.

The leaf tip above was part of a larger wall mosaic.

Some of the mosaics also included seashells.

The wall mosaics were more ornate than those on the floor, which tended to be more geometric.

Wall

Floor

Pottery and glass were part of the city's wares.

This display made me happy: ancient potters, like modern ones, discarded faulty work.

From the museum, we headed to the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta. Aquileia was, in fact, a model for other communities in Friuli, which is why Gemona and Cividale also have churches dedicated to Maria Assunta.

The earliest parts of the foundation date from the 4th c. CE. That church was destroyed by Huns in the 5th c. The current Romanesque basilica was consecrated in 1031 CE, with Gothic additions in the 13th c. It's still used as a church.

The main floor, however, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is cordoned off. The mosaics were delightful. I was particular enamored of the octopodes, squid, and sea serpents,...

...although there were also elaborate geometric designs.

We went down into the crypt...

...which also had mosaics on the floor. Many were no longer visible, as they were underneath the 73m high bell tower added in the 11th c.

Tortoise vs. rooster: darkness vs. light.

Darkness looks unhappy.

This 4th-c. six-pointed star was a geometric design. The symbol didn't represent Judaism until the 14th-17th c. CE, and wasn't a universal symbol of Judaism until the 19th c.

Back on the main floor--last two squid of the day

In front of the bell tower is a 20th-c. replica of Rome's Capitoline Wolf. 

The archeological sites continued beyond the basilica. Here, the foundations of several homes. The diagonal line is a clay water pipe! 

The birds are real, as is the ancient column on which it's standing. 

We had been seeing cypress trees all the way from Gemona to Trieste, but I didn't have any decent photos until Aquileia.

In the US, we walk our bikes; in Italy, they bike by hand.

We eventually made it back to Grado by bus and checked into our hotel. We had a lovely view of the small inner harbor.

Grado, like Trieste, was bustling with tourists, so it took some time to find a table for dinner. Afterward, we took a nighttime stroll through the oldest parts of town.

Unusual in our experience so far in Italy, the Basilica of Sant'Eufemia was not only still unlocked, but its doors were still open. 

We made our way through town...

...to a beach--and still did not touch the water.

Then we walked back to the small inner harbor.

Ta da! 14.7 miles. This is what happens when you combine a short 8-mile walk with being a tourist.

We spent the next morning bumming around Grado. We saw the Basilica by daylight,...

...finally touched the Adriatic at the tiny slice of beach that was public,...

...bought some grappa (about which we had received some instruction way back at the Rifugio Scotter-Palatini) and amaretti cookies, and people-watched for a bit in front of the hotel before heading north by bus to the train station in Cervignano.

There, we hung out for a good two hours in a bistro, watching other people and police officers hanging out.

On our way home, we passed Gemona...

...and Venzone.

We changed trains in Salzburg, because the ticket OEBB sold us with reserved seats all the way from Villach to Munich stopped in Salzburg. "But we have tickets all the way to Munich," we told the conductor, who replied, "not today, you don't." Ah, Deutschebahn...