Tour de (Western) Balkans 2023

We leave the Adriatic after a lovely meander along to Grado and then on over the lagoon. Aquileia is a stunner – in Roman times it was one of the biggest cities in the world. There are excavation sites everywhere and the museum is full of wonders.

Then it’s on to Palmanova and its crazy fortifications. By now we are back in Eurovelo/Alp Adriatic cycle route land and our total tally of cycle tourists for the trip doubles in a day. They’re everywhere. Though nearly all heading North to South as we see nearly no one heading in our direction during picnic stops. Great advantage of going South to North: you rarely have the sun in your face. Kinder on the sun burn front.

There’s a lot of meandering through farm land in this flat landscape with mountains slowly appearing in the background. Vines and large scale agriculture and a lot of fertilizing and weed killing going on. The tractors are massive. It’s all very beautiful nevertheless and Udine is lovely on a Sunday morning with truly extravagant bell ringing.

A bit of a slog out of Udine through endless suburbia stop starting on the cycle route but at least it avoids all traffic. Eventually the cycle route joins an old railway line and then next leg all the way to Pontebba is a stunner – through tunnels, over viaducts, high mountains all around.

The weather was set to turn in Pontebba and turn it did. We head off the next morning into the cloud, up a closed road, chancing that the road work guys will let us through and that there is a road to cycle up (they do and there is) and pass over to Austria in cold dreich weather and we can’t see a thing! This sets the tone for the final few days of our trip which turned into a wet wet wet crossing of the Alps.