St. Ulrich to Trieste, Day 14 - Montina to Prepotto via Cividale del Friuli - side trip to Udine

Saturday July 4, Montina to Prepotto

Today was a planned rest day--which meant opportunities to be tourists during our four-hour scheduled hike from Montina to Prepotto. The plan was to hike to Cividale del Friuli, where we'd catch a bus to the big city Udine. After a touristy circuit through Udine--where I'd hopefully find some new socks without holes in the toes--we'd take a bus back to Cividale, do another touristy circuit, then continue on our way to L'Agriturismo la Casa degli Ospiti in Prepotto.

News spread quickly of our departure from Montina. For every yard, a dog; for every dog, an alert from the previous dog. Arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf, for half a mile straight.

Our morning walk to Cividale felt like walking through a mix of West Virginia to the north... 

...and central Illinois to the south, but with grapes.

This building on the outskirts of Cividale could have blended in easily on the University of Illinois campus (hail, Alma Mater).

Ta da! Three very flat miles.

In Cividale, we hopped on an hourly bus, and about 40 minutes later we disembarked in Udine at the train station (because the bus was a substitute for the train, which was out of service). Our first order of business was to walk to the Udine bus station to find a place to store our backpacks.

The employee who sold us storage space seemed to be an annoyed man in a perpetual exasperated hurry, until he asked where we came from. When we said we lived in North Carolina, he softened: "Ah, basketball!" "Yes, yes, we work at Duke, and there's also UNC and NC State." We'd never be friends, but at least we were suddenly cooler than other tourists.

We are childish, so we thought this was funny. We did not eat here.

Then we meandered. One of the highlights was a contemporary art exhibit in a 13th-c. former church, Chiesa di San Francesco.

On the walls, medieval frescoes. Das Wandern ist des Müllers Lust, das Wandern. Here, the miller is heading out for a walk so a saint can heal his bleeding hand.

The exhibit was a retrospective of the sculptures and paintings of Calogero Condello.

Not a crucifix

Butterflies at the door...

Our meanderings through Udine brought us to the Piazza Libertà and the Loggia del Lionello. 

The loggia was built in the Venetian-Gothic style from 1448 to 1457, and restored in the 19th century following a fire.

Here is a view of my two remaining wool hiking socks above the beautiful parquet floor, reminded me to find a new pair of socks to last until we reached Trieste.

From the loggia, we headed up the steps and paths across the street to the 16th-c. Castello di Udine. We did not tour the castle, but we did enjoy the views of the Alps to the north.

Our sock search commenced on back down in the Piazza Libertà, where we were reminded that stores in Italy are often closed from noon to 3pm because storekeepers have lives too, you know. We found lunch at a grocery store, then headed back to the bus station to pick up our backpacks.

Happy 250th anniversary, USA. 

Another 40-minute bus ride, and we were back in Cividale del Friuli, where we also meandered.

Porta San Pietro, a 16th-century city gate 

Cividale had an Ashkenazi Jewish community from the 13th c. CE until their expulsion by Venetian authorities in 1572. A gravestone in the wall of Porta San Pietro is a 1568 copy of a much earlier stone.

We found gelato in the plaza near the Duomo Santa Maria Assunta in the old town...

...across from the bronze Julius Caesar statue. Archeological evidence indicates Cividale had paleolithic and neolithic settlements, but Julius is credited with founding a marketplace here ca. 50 BCE.   

We visited the Museo Cristiano next to the Duomo, where the cathedral treasures were kept, and enjoyed the 8th-century karst reliquary and baptismal font. Particularly appealing were the frowny faces. We asked the admission attendant about the frowns, and she said all of the carvings were originally painted, but everyone's smiling lower lips had worn off over the intervening 1,300 years.  

Dainty feet

I thought this creature on the side of a baptismal font looked like a porcupine and that its eyes were the two black dots, until a friend later pointed out the carved eye and the text under the critter's paws. Apparently it is the ancient cousin of Bressanone's schröcklich Leu.

This 1374 metal reliquary depicts Cividale's patron saint, San Donato. Museum literature says it contains Donato's skull. OK. 

On our way out of Cividale, we passed the oldest-fashioned shoe shop I've ever seen, with the walls lined from top to bottom with boxes of old-fashioned shoes. Therein we magically found a brand spankin' new pair of long, grey cashmere socks. O lucky day!

We crossed the Ponte del Diavolo...

...and paused to admire Cividale's Natisone river, its neon green color making a seeming 4th of July nod to the USA's renovated Lincoln Memorial reflection pool.

Past Cividale, we met up with the Alpe Adria, a 750-km trail running from Grossglockner in Austria to Muggia just south of Trieste.

We decided to take a shortcut from our planned route so that we'd arrive in Prepotto by 6pm, and then took a wrong turn that extended our route by a few extra miles. Oh well. We enjoyed the rolling hills and greenery in what was no-holds-barred agritourism territory.

As we approached our destination, our trail passed the the woods. Which is to say, the trail was passable. We had finally made it past the land of impassable trails through woods. Whew!

We arrived late at our accommodations...

...but eventually found our host down the road at the inn's affiliated restaurant, where we had reserved a table for dinner. It's hard to imagine a more beautiful place to celebrate S's birthday.

The candle and balloon both crossed the Dolomites (and the
candle also traversed much of the Swiss Via Alpina last year)

Ta da! The last 5.75 miles to Prepotto. Somehow on our "rest day," we managed to walk/hike almost 16 miles.