April 8, 2011
Cavallino-Treporti to Upatje
Our day started with a castle drive. A visit to the Castle Duono where the “royal family” from the Austrian Hungarian Empire times had opened up the castle to the public...supposedly for sharing purposes. We guess it was more to help finance the upkeep of the place. It was a beautiful setting on the shores of the Adriatic with sweeping views over the coastline and its rugged cliffs. Beautiful gardens went down to the water's edge hidden way below. A family that supported the arts, they had all sorts of instruments on display that seemed to be very valuable. And then we followed the coastline to another castle...Miramar. This was set in a large garden of many hectares owned by the state now. The Important personage who built the place was appointed Emperor of Mexico before all the furniture was finished for his very elaborately decorated castle and he died over in Mexico. The Austro Hungarian Empire Home is now owned by the people..and I am sure is very expensive to maintain. The furniture looks like it was hardly used(probably cuz the guy died) and most of the castle is maintained as it was.
From here we went into Trieste, a beautiful city with one of the largest squares in Europe...It is graced by a fountain that is a tribute to the 4 continents..seemed a few weren't discovered yet! Australia and one of the Americas. This was the main port of the Austrian Hungarian Empire up to WWI and is graced by beautiful buildings and a cafe culture. We had coffee in one that has existed since the 1830's and the prices were reasonable- thought not quite at the cost of the original.
We let the GPS be our guide as we tried to cross from Italy to Slovenia and onto Croatia. Seemed simple enough- but what looked like an hours drive to Rijeka turned into at least 2 hours travelling these back roads that snaked back and forth across the sides of the hills, through small villages and countryside and every once in a while provided magnificent vistas. Of course the mood in the car was not great...GPS vs the human brain aided by maps. Lots of strife and stress..must have been leftover bad feelings from the Balkan War. We finally pulled into Opatja and decided to find a hotel.
Opatja is a beautiful seaside resort and was quite soothing to the soul...once we found a hotel as many were still not open for the season. But our rooms overlooked the Adriatic Sea and beautiful mansions from the AHE graced the roads of the town. Lots of German tourists shopped and walked the streets and filled our hotel. Along the edge of the sea was the most beautiful flagstone walk, through the town and along the stone walls of the old villas. In the town, we had wonderful gelato and watched the night descend over the sea with a beverage. Renewed our spirits!
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