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 experience being on the Adriatic so 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 the Bay 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. Italy confiscated the boat as part of European 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.

As we walked toward the center of town, S told me about the sights he remembered: "...and there's a small inner harbor," he said. "Ya don't say," I said, having told him multiple times that I had booked a hotel facing the small inner harbor. 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 nostalgia requires 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 backpacks at the hotel, then started an 8-mile walk 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 bus to the train station in Cervignano (north of Aquileia) and heading back to Germany.

Nets, boats, and a bicycle along the Grado canal

The first 3.5 miles of our walk crossed the Grado Lagoon on a causeway.

We shared the causeway with cars for a short distance, but soon reached the Alpe Adria cycle path. We saw many bicyclists, but didn't see any other walkers.

Tide was low as we crossed, which meant the large colony of egrets on the west side of the causeway had above-water land to stand on. 

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

Check out my nice new soft cashmere socks. Not shown: no holes in the toes.

After we left the lagoon behind, our next 4.5 miles were past mostly flat fields--not much to see. We paused to buy plums at a fruit stand that closed minutes after we arrived, a sign that it was noon.

Aquileia's ancient economic success was as a river and sea port. While it was never positioned directly on the sea, it's now a good 10 kilometers 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 to the history by first visiting Aquileia's archeological museum. Mosaics were the highlight.

Carly liked the rooster

What do you do with all the statuary that gets dug up any time you dig a hole somewhere? Pieces are 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

Note the snakes

Ich bin ein schröcklicher Fisch

The mosaic detail was amazing. Some of the tiles were smaller than my pinky fingernail.

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

Some of the wall 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 among the city's wares.

The museum had several prints by Andy Warhol

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

From the museum, we headed to the Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta. The Basilica served as 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 basilica's 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 today.

The main floor, however, is cordoned off. It's the largest early Christian mosaic floor in the western world--a UNESCO World Heritage site. 

If Aquileians were bored by church services, the floor surely gave them something to pay attention to instead. I was particular enamored of the mosaic 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 designs are lost to history, now covered by 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 design didn't come to 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 well 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 the woodcock is 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. Our room 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 Adriatic.

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 instructions from the proprietor way back at Rifugio Scotter-Palatini) and amaretti cookies, and people-watched for a while in front of our 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 snackers and a few police officers hanging out and enjoying afternoon chats at the counter.

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 ended in Salzburg. "But we have tickets all the way to Munich," we told the conductor, who replied, "not today, you don't." Thanks, Deutschland Ticket.