Roadbook S1 Trieste Ultra — the route trail by trail

The S1 Trieste Ultra leaves the centre of Trieste in the early evening and reaches PortoPiccolo after 61.2 km run entirely in the dark. 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 first half of the S1 Bora Ultra, which shares the same course as far as PortoPiccolo.

From Trieste to the Val Rosandra

The urban prologue

It all begins in the heart of Trieste/Trst, while the city is still buzzing with life: an Italian, Slavic, Germanic, Jewish and Greek crossroads, where Joyce wrote Ulysses in the cafés of via San Nicolò, Svevo invented Zeno's conscience and Saba kept his bookshop on the same street. The first kilometre crosses the old town at a controlled pace — piazza Unità d'Italia, the Habsburg palaces, the lights on the Canal Grande — an urban prologue no other trail race can offer.

The night climb towards the Karst edge

Leaving the centre, the route climbs through the urban parks that make Trieste one of Italy's greenest cities, crossing Parco del Ferdinandeo towards the hills that form the natural amphitheatre on which the city is laid out. As you climb, Trieste unfolds beneath your feet in a pattern of lights reflected on the sea, with the Lighthouse of Victory and Audace Pier serving as cardinal points in the darkness; on clear winter nights, the snow-capped silhouettes of the Julian Alps can be discerned beyond the gulf.

The first CAI trail: no. 015 at Hervati

The first CAI trail on the route is CAI 015, at Hervati/Hrvati. From here the course enters the upper part of the Val Rosandra/Dolina Glinščice. Leaving CAI 015, it uses a few links of the Vertikala SPDT and reaches CAI 046, descending on it towards Bagnoli della Rosandra/Boljunec, at around km 13.

The Val Rosandra at night

The Val Rosandra is the only valley in Italy with a stream running on the surface of the Karst, inside a nature reserve of remarkable biodiversity. Its vertical walls of white limestone, up to three hundred metres high, are the same ones where Emilio Comici — the legendary Triestine climber and pioneer of the sixth grade — trained in the 1930s. At night the valley floor is a dark, damp corridor, with the sound of the stream as your reference point.

From the Val Rosandra to Bottazzo

From Bagnoli the route continues on CAI 046 towards Crogole/Kroglje and the Crogole lookout. In this sector the course briefly overlaps with the Alpe Adria Trail and with CAI 001, which nonetheless remain distinct itineraries: they only share a few stretches.

The course then joins CAI 001, passes the Cave of the Ancient Inscriptions and drops to the valley floor. After a climb on an unnumbered track it takes CAI 039 and then returns to CAI 001; sharing some stretches with the Vertikala SPDT it reaches Bottazzo/Botač, the last cluster of houses before the climb up to the plateau.

From Bottazzo to the Opicina Obelisk

From Bottazzo the course climbs on forest tracks towards Basovizza/Bazovica. Here it takes CAI 044 — Sentiero Ressel, returns to CAI 001, passes San Lorenzo/Jezero and continues to the Opicina Obelisk/Opčine. This is the correct geographical order, and it is worth keeping in mind when reading the track: Bottazzo, Basovizza, San Lorenzo, Obelisk.

This is the stretch that follows CAI 001 towards Sistiana, the very same used by the earliest editions of the Corsa della Bora. You run with Trieste at your feet, a carpet of lights pulsing in the night, while on clear winter nights the snow-covered profiles of Snežnik, Triglav and the Julian Alps stand out on the horizon.

From the Obelisk down to the sea at Barcola

At the Opicina Obelisk, a historic viewpoint over the Gulf, the course leaves CAI 001 and takes CAI 012 — Sentiero Nicolò Cobolli, passing close to Monte Gurca and the cave of the same name. In this sector the route also uses a short stretch of the Strada Napoleonica, the 1821 balcony suspended between the Karst edge and the sea.

After brief crossings or overlaps with CAI 001, the Alpe Adria Trail and the Vertikala SPDT, the course drops through the Bosco del Bovedo — a dense, steep wood plunging towards the sea — down to the Barcola/Barkovlje waterfront.

From Barcola to Contovello

From Barcola the course follows viale Miramare and the coastal stretch of the Topolini. In the Miramare area it climbs back up to the Castle by the Scalinata di Sissi, the staircase used by Empress Elisabeth of Austria to reach the park of the Habsburg castle built for Archduke Maximilian and Charlotte of Belgium.

Still in the Miramare area the course takes CAI 009 uphill, the trail between Miramare and Contovello; in its upper part this overlaps with the Sentiero dei Pescatori/Ribiška pot. CAI 009 and the Sentiero dei Pescatori are not, however, two equivalent names for the whole segment.

Contovello/Kontovel is a village of Karst stone houses surrounded by the terraces where the native grape varieties of the Karst grow: Vitovska, Malvasia Istriana and Glera, the original Prosecco grape, whose namesake village lies a few kilometres from here. The Gulf widens behind you with every metre of altitude gained.

From Contovello to PortoPiccolo: the finale along the Karst edge

From Contovello the course alternates stretches of CAI 001 with links along the Karst edge. It crosses the Strada della Salvia/Žajbljeva pot and shares only part of the Aurisina educational trail/Učna pot Nabrežina. Near the industrial area of Aurisina Cave, close to the BRT/Bartolini depot, it leaves CAI 001.

It then reaches Borgo San Mauro on local roads, follows a short stretch of CAI 023 — Sentiero Tiziana Weiss, named after the Triestine climber who died at 26 in 1978 on the Pale di San Martino, and continues on further links to PortoPiccolo. This is the closing stretch shared by every distance of the Corsa della Bora: the Vedetta Weiss, a panoramic terrace 159 metres above the sea with a bunker of the Gladio network at its foot, and the Costa dei Barbari, cliffs plunging into the water.

Run at night, arriving from Contovello, this finale has an almost primeval feel: only the sound of the sea below your feet works as a compass before the final plunge down to the Bora Village at PortoPiccolo.

Technical sequence

CAI 015 → Vertikala SPDT/links → CAI 046 → CAI 001 → non-CAI track → CAI 039 → CAI 001 → forest tracks → CAI 044 → CAI 001 → CAI 012 → non-CAI descent → CAI 009 → CAI 001 and links → short CAI 023 → PortoPiccolo

The passages not numbered by the CAI are the race course's own connecting links, marked on the ground by the organisers. The main ones are the descent from the Bosco del Bovedo towards Barcola and the link between Aurisina Cave, CAI 023 and PortoPiccolo.

Where it joins the S1 Bora Ultra

The S1 Trieste Ultra coincides with the first half of the S1 Bora Ultra: the two races share the same course as far as PortoPiccolo, at km 61.2, where the life base is set up. On the official track the junction point corresponds to coordinates 45.76352, 13.63751.

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 Bora, the wind — the wind that gives the event its name.
• The Karst Osmize — the same grapes from the terraces of Contovello, in a glass.
• Costa dei Barbari and PortoPiccolo and Sistiana Bay — the closing stretch and the logistical heart of the event.
• Trail running in Trieste and the Karst — the same trails, walkable 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 Trieste Ultra 61 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.