We woke up fairly late, and the Hungarian woman had already left before sunrise,
and the Czech girl was just leaving, so we ate our strawberries and yogourt
and set out into the mists along country roads, medieval and roman pathways.
We took a detour to see a church with attached roman baths and a closed bar,
and went on to the Villapalatina hostel where a friendly
owner gave us lunch ( steak, chips and salad), and said to phone him if we ever
had any problems!
After lunch we had a reasonable stretch on roads by
a river being overtaken by the Scot and later
by the German with whom we chatted
on the way into Grado. The town centre was
pleasant, but we went through to the
church and had coffee and pastries at the nearby bakers.
Leaving Grado, we headed up into the hills on old roads, with a total of 330m
up and 450m down. At the top of the pass, there was church and a
telecoms technician installing optical fibre!
The way down was not so pleasant as the way up,
with a steep gravel track, but this later turned into
a medieval track by the side of a stream with a ruined
water mill. Emerging at another church, we found
a bar offering pilgrim accommodation, but when
we enquired of the jovial landlord, he said he didn't have any rooms.
Or at least we think he did, because we couldn't understand him.
Seeing how exhausted we were, he carried out a complicated
mime, and showed us a cabin outside with two bunk beds and a double bed.
He then mimed a lot of other stuff, and we ended
up drinking beer and eating yesterday's left over stew
which he warmed up for us.
He did offer us a slice of an animal's leg
he had attached to the bar, but we declined.
As far as we understood, we should help ourselves
to breakfast the next morning and shut up the bar
when we leave!
