April 26th: Trieste - Udine, Italy ~ A gorgeously scenic ride in Italy…Freedom Day.

78km distance with 338m of climbing

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Grant’s account of the ride yesterday with Julian’s commentary interspersed in today’s blog…

Leaving our apartment near central Trieste at 9am, we dodged the groups of pedestrians in the very busy city and headed north, hugging the Italian coastline.

At Monfalcone we had a coffee stop and ate delicious local cuisine and we then bade the coast goodbye and headed northwest towards Udine for a total distance today of 78km. It was pretty flat too which made a pleasant change.

Threatening black clouds seemed to hover above us at various times during the day, but happily no rain attire required for the entire journey. The sun even made a cameo appearance between Corona and Udine and at a few other moments. The air was not surprisingly icy cold as we were surrounded to the east by mountains thickly covered in snow.

The majority of our day was on tar road shoulders, but we had some sections on cycling tracks, single muddy tracks and even gravel.

Today is the kind of day that makes our experience worthwhile. Hoots, waves, fist pumps and a geography lesson on the road by one of the local cyclists for Julian. The source of the blue water in the river they were crossing was discussed as well as the fact that all of the water is drinkable and a natural pure source for the residents of the area to drink as it comes down from the mountains in Slovenia, once the ice on the mountains melts. It is so clean even the pebbles in the river looked sparkly!

Cows, horses, chickens and lots of other farm animals were in abundance with acre upon acre of vineyards whilst we cycled from one small town to the next with super courteous Italian drivers scooting past made today the ideal day for cycling. Lots of people out and about as it was a celebration of Freedom Day, fellow cyclists and friendly car drivers who were very respectful of travelling spaces for cyclists.

Whilst you still need to be very aware of other vehicles, the general Italian driver is super bike aware, and unless they can safely pass you with a large enough gap, they will just wait patiently. Pedestrian/ bicycle crossings are also super safe. If a driver knows you intention is to cross the road they will stop - always. We are still super cautious - they may just not be paying attention.

The icy wind has made us change our route tomorrow so instead of heading further North into the Dolomites (Northeastern Italy), that are all covered in snow, we will instead traverse across mid northern Italy for the next day or two.

The meal of the day was the most amazing fish dinner in town after we arrived.

Unfortunately, we came across a rather gruesome Cruelty against animals/vegan protest with sad music playing and two people carrying screens with looping reels playing frightening content which included the making of chicken nuggets, but that was after dinner, and we didn’t hang around to watch the protest in the main road.

Tomorrow will hopefully be a sunny day in order to enjoy the beautiful scenery and catch some rays while we ride our bikes.

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