May 28: Garda to Ptuj via Trieste

Trieste is a one night stop-off on our way to Ptuj in Slovenia, and we arrive early enough to walk along the clifftop behind the campsite. There are some pleasant sea views looking down towards Trieste although the path is made of sharp limestone and quite stumbly underfoot.

Presently we come to some military lookout posts hollowed out of the rock. These date back to the First World War. However, this corner of Italy didn’t belong to Italy at the time but to the Austro-Hungarian Empire who were the enemy. And Italy was on our side in WW1 so was fighting to capture this part of today’s Italy. Confusing, isn’t it? You could end up fighting yourself.

The information board outside the lookout cave showed a picture of the enemy observers, who were German naval personnel.

The photo looks humorously boy-scoutish, but there was nothing funny about the war in the Trieste area; it was as hard fought as on the Western Front. There were especially high casualties caused by the shells splintering the limestone into deadly shrapnel, the same sharp shards that I complained was making the path uncomfortable to walk on.

We walked as far as the next photo point where I took this silhouette of Duino castle in the falling light. It was rebuilt in 1920, having been virtually destroyed by Italian artillery in WW1.

Whilst on the walk, we met an Englishman with his wife whose father was from Trieste. His dad considers the Trieste area still as an entity separate from Italy and my guidebook states this is generally felt. Unfortunately, they don’t have any oil like Scotland to fuel an independence movement.