Roadbook S1 TransKarst Ultra — the route trail by trail

The S1 TransKarst Ultra starts at PortoPiccolo and returns there after 55 km, crossing both the Italian and the Slovenian Karst. This page describes the route in the order you meet it: the CAI trails, the itineraries that run alongside it for a stretch and the race's own connecting links. It is also the second half of the S1 Bora Ultra.

From PortoPiccolo to the Sentiero Rilke

From the Bay of Sistiana the course climbs towards the Sistiana quarry, crosses the wood above the bay and reaches CAI 001, partly shared with the Alpe Adria Trail and, in the cliff sector, with the Sentiero Rilke. This is the climb from the White Cliffs: a natural wall of limestone taking you from sea level up to the plateau trails in just a few hundred metres of ascent.

The Sentiero Rilke is a little over two kilometres suspended between sky and sea along the Duino Cliffs Nature Reserve, between Sistiana/Sesljan and Duino/Devin. It was here, in the winter of 1912, that Rainer Maria Rilke — a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis at Duino Castle — heard the first words of the Duino Elegies carried by the wind. From these cliffs comes the motto of the Corsa della Bora, being here is glorious.

Duino, the Mithraeum and the first fork

The course crosses the old village of Duino/Devin in front of Duino Castle, the fifteenth-century residence of the princes of Thurn und Taxis where Dante was a guest before Rilke, with the White Lady — the rock shaped like a veiled woman — visible beside the ruins of the old castle.

From Duino it takes CAI 001a — Sentiero del Mitreo. At the Mithraeum Cave, or Mithraeum of Duino, it leaves CAI 001a and takes CAI 033. Shortly afterwards comes the first race fork: the S1 Family Hike & Trail takes its own shorter loop, while the S1 Half Trail, S1 Borderless Trail, S1 TransKarst Ultra and S1 Bora Ultra continue on CAI 033.

Towards Medeazza and the big race fork

Beyond Duino the terrain changes character: you leave the coastal cliffs and enter the plateau, where Monte Ermada — Grmada in Slovenian, 323 metres — dominates the landscape like a sentinel between two worlds, with First World War trenches and fortifications now healed over by the woods.

The course moves from CAI 033 to CAI 003a, which leads to Medeazza/Medjavas, a village of stone houses in the middle of the Karst heath dotted with terraced vineyards and dolines, where the Italian Karst looks towards Slovenia. Here, at around km 9.8, comes the big race fork: the S1 Half Trail and the S1 Borderless Trail head on towards Monte Ermada, while the S1 TransKarst Ultra and the S1 Bora Ultra take the long branch towards Jamiano.

The long branch: Bosco Flondar and Jamiano

The long distances follow CAI 003 — Alta Via del Carso in several sections, with some stretches shared with the Vertikala SPDT, cross the Bosco Flondar and pass close to the ruins of the Casali Flondar as far as Jamiano/Jamlje.

In the Jamiano area the course briefly follows the SR 519 di Jamiano and then uses CAI 075 in several sections, alternating it with short deviations of its own. The route does not reach the SR 55: that road is a formal end point of CAI 075, but the race track leaves the trail before it.

Bonetti and Hill 208 South

Past the village, the course enters the Bonetti/Boneti sector and Hill 208 South, one of the densest war landscapes in the Karst. It skirts the Abisso Bonetti, the Grotta dell'Artiglieria, the Grotta 2ª di Bonetti and the cave emplacement bearing the plaque of the 2nd Sappers Engineer Regiment, 190th Company. The route passes close to these structures but does not go through them: the caves stay outside the race track.

The Engineers' plaque is documented in the Pro Hereditate register: a concrete slab measuring 41 by 27.5 centimetres, made in 1917 during the major works on the southern slopes of Hill 208 and still intact at the entrance to the emplacement. This whole sector belongs to the Isonzo front whose sites are retraced by the Walk of Peace/Pot miru, the cross-border memorial itinerary linking over three hundred First World War sites between Italy and Slovenia, from the Alps to the Adriatic.

The border: the Sentiero Abramo Schmid

Near Issari/Hišarji, having left CAI 075, the course follows a short link of the Valichi del Carso itinerary and takes CAI 079 — Sentiero Abramo Schmid, named after the colonel and Karst scholar who wrote extensively about this territory. The trail runs along the border with Slovenia and was born of the need to patrol the frontier continuously after the Second World War: it used to be called the «kerb path».

CAI 079 follows the border zone as far as Monte Kremenjak, 235-236 metres, and on to Quota 219/Špik. From the two summits, on clear days, the view reaches the Adriatic, the port and the shipyard of Monfalcone/Tržič, and from Špik also the Brestovizza valley; below the summit a war cave and a border stone remain.

The Slovenian Karst: from the graničari to Sela na Krasu

A steep zigzag descent follows the border line. On the Slovenian side the route uses a stretch associated with the graničari/graničarji, the Yugoslav border guards: these patrol paths came into being with the division of the Trieste territory and were for decades the tangible face of the Iron Curtain.

The climb back up, on a gentler gradient, leads towards Sela na Krasu, a small village in the Slovenian municipality of Miren-Kostanjevica. This is the stretch that gives the race its name: a genuine crossing, where the landscape becomes more solitary and trail running turns into a journey, among Karst heath, dry stone walls and views opening from the sea to the mountains. The course then heads towards Vale and re-enters Italy through the border woods.

Back in Italy: Precenico, San Pelagio and the Lupinc Park

After re-entering Italy the course meets CAI 003 again and follows it as far as CAI 032. The latter leads through the Precenico area to San Pelagio/Šempolaj.

Between San Pelagio, Prepotto/Praprot and the Fornace di Aurisina the course alternates local links, a short stretch of CAI 010, the non-CAI passage through the Lupinc Park, a stretch of CAI 035 and a link near the Fornace and the SP 5, before picking up CAI 010 again towards Santa Croce/Križ. The name Sentiero Gemina should not be used as a synonym for CAI 010: in the CAI register the Sentiero Gemina is CAI 042.

The Lupinc Great War Park is an open-air museum created by Danilo Lupinc on his own land for the centenary of the First World War. The trail runs through trenches dug into the limestone by Russian prisoners of war in the service of the Austro-Hungarian army, past a plaque dedicated to Danilo's grandfather Anton Terčon, who fell in 1916, and past the Grotta Lesa, a natural doline with a collapsed roof reached through a stone arch.

Santa Croce and the finale by the sea

Leaving the Lupinc Park, the course drops towards the sea: the horizon opens onto the Adriatic all the way to Santa Croce/Križ, once a village of Slovenian fishermen who climbed up from the coast along the Sentiero della Salvia to spot the tuna shoals in the Gulf of Trieste/Tržaški zaliv.

From Santa Croce the course uses stretches of CAI 001 and coastal and educational links; in the final sector it touches three short fragments of CAI 023 — Sentiero Tiziana Weiss, followed by non-CAI links to PortoPiccolo. It would be wrong to attribute the whole return leg either to CAI 001 alone or to CAI 023 alone.

The Sentiero Tiziana Weiss, also known as the Sentiero della Salvia, is named after the Triestine climber who died at 26 in 1978 on the Pale di San Martino. It runs level, raised above the sea, to the Vedetta Weiss, a panoramic terrace 159 metres above sea level with a bunker of the Gladio network at its foot. The final kilometres touch the Costa dei Barbari, cliffs dropping sheer into crystal-clear water, before the last plunge down to the Bora Village at PortoPiccolo.

Technical sequence

CAI 001 → CAI 001a → CAI 033 → CAI 003a → CAI 003 → short SR 519 → CAI 075 → link → CAI 079 (Sentiero Abramo Schmid) → Slovenian non-CAI stretch → CAI 003 → CAI 032 → links → short CAI 010 → Lupinc Park (non-CAI) → CAI 035 → Fornace/SP 5 link → CAI 010 → CAI 001 and links → short sections of CAI 023 → PortoPiccolo

The race forks

The distances starting from PortoPiccolo share the opening kilometres and split at precise points, verified on the official 2027 tracks.

• S1 Family Hike & Trail / S1 Half Trail — split shortly after the Mithraeum, at around km 7.75; the two tracks meet again at about km 8.36 of the S1 Family Hike & Trail, which corresponds to about km 16.90 of the S1 Half Trail.
• S1 TransKarst Ultra and S1 Bora Ultra / S1 Half Trail and S1 Borderless Trail — split at Medeazza, at around km 9.8 of the races starting from PortoPiccolo.
• S1 Half Trail / S1 Borderless Trail — split at the Grotta del Motore, at around km 13.2.
• S1 Borderless Trail / S1 TransKarst Ultra and S1 Bora Ultra — they merge again just after Monte Sambuco, at about km 15.6 of the S1 Borderless Trail and about km 34.8 of the S1 TransKarst Ultra.

Further reading

• Official list, tracks and technical sheets of the trails: CAI FVG trail register — Sector 0 Karst.
• The CAI trails of the Karst — numbers, official names and 2027 races across the whole network.
• The Società Alpina delle Giulie on CAI 079 — Sentiero Abramo Schmid and on its border origins.
• The Walk of Peace/Pot miru — the Great War memorial itinerary between the Alps and the Adriatic.
• The Pro Hereditate register on the plaque of the 2nd Sappers Engineer Regiment at Hill 208 South.
• Duino and the Rilke Path, Santa Croce and Aurisina, The Karst Osmize and Costa dei Barbari.
• PortoPiccolo and Sistiana Bay — the start and finish base. Trail running in Trieste and the Karst — the same trails all year round.

This description has editorial value and helps you understand how the route is built trail by trail. To actually follow the track, in training as in the race, only the official GPS track and the race markings put in place by the organisers apply. Up-to-date distances, elevation gain, cut-off times and aid stations are published on the race page, S1 TransKarst Ultra 55 km; the network of trails on which every Corsa della Bora course is built is described on the page The CAI trails of the Karst.