On the trip to Italy we crossed 28 km of Slovenia. I guess
Slovenia needed that small stretch of Adriatic Coast. The border
crossing to Italy went pretty fast. Just needed to show our passports
when the border agent came on the bus.
Since our trip to Venice was cancelled because of flooding, we
still made a full day trip to two cities in northeastern Italy - Udine and
Trieste
Udine has a population of about 100,000. Mostly Slovenia
is spoken. We passed the largest cemetery in Europe, mostly from World War I - over
100,000 graves. Our tour guide gave an excellent history of the
town and pointed out interesting landmarks. Liberty
Square was our first stop. A building on Liberty Square was covered
to protect us from the rain, so spent some time there learning about the town's history. We entered the Old
Town through a stone gate.
The cathedral
was in the old town.
It rained for most of our visit, but we
still wondered around town. We were given €10 each to have lunch on our own. John elected to
have some delicious pizza from a small store.
Then we got lost because all the streets curved or dead-ended into small
squares. We had to ask directions about 4 or 5 times to
find our way out of the walled old town and back to our bus.
We then proceeded to Miramare Castle
on Trieste Bay.
We had a wonderful guided tour but were not allowed to take pictures
inside. It was windy but not raining walking around the
castle. The wind was whipping up some rough seas in the bay.
Only a few miles away was the city of Trieste. It was dark
and raining when we arrived. We went to the top of the hill
overlooking the city to visit the Cathedral
di San Guisto.
After the full day in Italy we returned to
Opatija
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