Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Trip to Trieste

09/09/06

Here we go again, yippee.............. I am off to Trieste in Italy, set off by 8am, down the A2 motorway, the bike is heavy but once on the move handles reasonably well and cruise at 120 k is not a problem, just after Graz I stop for fuel and a cup of coffee to warm up a little, I have the wrong gloves on and my fingers are close to freezing at the high altitudes. After 30 mins I am off again, there is little indication now of crossing the border to Italy, your speed is now only to 100k as you go into Italy, the views are fantastic, its over 50k to the next fuel stop, so if you are close to top up do it before you enter Italy. Now the temperature is increasing and I feel much better, the road is great until you get close to Udine, ( later in this blog we will go there) then the road becomes typically Roman, as straight as a die. Turn left to Trieste shortly after Udine, I am staying in Duino, its a small fishing Village about 20k North of Trieste, the toll for the road was 8 Euro. Duino becomes my base, its not bad, there are a couple of bars and restaurants there, it was nice just to relax and have a glass of wine sitting in the sun, there is an international school there,so there is a lot of young people from all over the world hanging around. The port is at the bottom of the cliff, during the summer months there is a ferry that takes you to Trieste, the Fish restaurant by the harbour is a little expensive, but the view while you are eating is great.

The castle on the left is supposed to be very nice, the entrance is in the heart of the village, I did not find time to visit it





So Trieste, parking is not easy, even with the bike, look at this foe example, the Italians love there scooters and bikes, but be wear the italian car driver has little regard for us two wheel sorts, I have seen a lot of bent bikes around, that look like cars pulling out on the bike. mind you some of the speeds they do would make Valentino Rossi wince.
Anyway on the brighter side here are some photo's of Trieste, the junk by the water is what some divers pulled out, get a close up of the table, in case you did not know if you click on the image it will come up larger












































So this is the first instalment, I will continue shortly with a tour round the region and the cool trip back.