AN ITALIAN JOURNEY

Dear friends. Last week I went to Italy with my live-ins. We went by public transport til Linz (yuck!) But redhead and norski claimed it was better than driving, and the train was indeed very fast. I think it cruises around 200 kmh. Not too bad really.  Still I'm used to individual transport with a high CO2 output.
In Linz we changed to car-transport.

Pic 0: Helping out with packing the suitcase.

Pic 1 : Sleepy on the Motorway

Our target was Görz, or "Gorizia" as the Italians say. It's located in the province of Friaul (Friuli) It more or less is a divided city on the Italian-Slovene border. The not-so-unknown river of Isonzo runs through the city.  Redhead claimed her 'cestors came from a horse-stable within city-limits.  Lotta horse?$%& if you ask me.


Pic 2: An Italian view from our B&B window.

Pic 3: The first thing I saw whilst entering the B&B. I felt right at home. (For you non-belivers: this is emperor Franz-Josef of Austria-Hungary. )

We vere all tired after the journey. So Redhead and norski wanted to rest. I being a ferkel an' all, had to go out and hunt my own food. So I hunted down a pizza at the local store (se pic)   When I came back to the room the smell of pizza waked my two live-ins, so they wanted a bite as well.

Pic 3,5: Walking the pizza in downtown Gorizia.

We did a lot of things. Here is:

Pic 4: me and my carrier on Piazza Italia in Trieste. Always a nice town to visit. Note this picture is changed a bit after the PRISM scandal.  Can you spot a handsom ferkel in this shot?

We went mountain walking in the limestone alps north of Görz.

Pic 5: Some large mountain. Norski even added a weather raport over Instagram.

Pic 6: We walked 700 altitude-meter up the mountain side, then over the top, then 350 altitude-meters down. Took a picture of this mountain cabin, then went 350m up, and then 700m down to the car. Took 6,5 hrs.  Glad I was carried. Food serving was lousy.

Pic 7: Norski posing. Stupid cap.

Some day later we went for a trip along the Isonzo-river. Here, during WWI, there were 12 mayor battles between the Austrian-Hungarian-empire against the Italians. Anyway the loss of life was tremendous. many 10 000 soldiers (70k?) lost their lives. Some survived. Among them Ernest Hemingway (a then 19 year old ambulance driver)
Here is one of the small towns along the River. This is in Slovenia.

Pic 8: A small Slovene town of "Kanal" in the rain. Strange milky-blue colour on the Isonzo though...

We also visited Cividale del Friuli (this is in Italy)  There is apparently an important wine-industry here.  A nice place. Nice food. Tried out a small slow-food restaurant here.

Pic 9: Cividale del Friuli.

Anyway; it was nice to visit Italy again. For about 300 years, I think, this used to be part of Austria. Strange to think about that. We even saw some places serving typical austrian dished, like dumplings and wiener schnitzel. And of course lots of buildings with the typical colouring, as also seen in Hungary and all the other countries that used to be part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.

Hope you all liked the photos.
Your
Grunzl