Part 1 - The Night

Trieste: The Departure from the Mitteleuropean Heart

It all begins in the heart of Trieste/Trst, in the early evening, when the city is still vibrant with life and the historic cafés exude that atmosphere that makes Trieste unique. Because Trieste is, before anything else, a crossroads: Italian, Slavic, Germanic, Jewish, Greek - a melting pot where for centuries different cultures have mixed and enriched each other, leaving an imprint that can be read in the architecture, in the surnames, in the flavours, in the languages that still intertwine in the streets of the centre. Here Joyce wrote the’Ulysses in the cafés of Via San Nicolò, Svevo invented The Conscience of Zeno, Saba kept his bookshop in Via San Nicolò - a city where literature is not museum heritage but air that you breathe.

The first kilometre at controlled speed runs through the streets of the historic centre - Piazza Unità d'Italia, the Hapsburg palaces, the lights reflecting on the water of the Grand Canal - in an urban prologue that no other trail race can boast. Trieste is not just the start: it is the first, unforgettable stretch of the route.

Simplified logistics: Heated space at the start, bag deposit at the start line and bib collection directly in Trieste. No transfer necessary: you arrive, you run, and the journey begins.

The Night Climb: Trieste at Feet, the Stars Above

Leaving the centre, you lengthen your stride along the 19th-century boulevards and climb into the urban parks that make Trieste one of the greenest cities in Italy - a peculiarity that surprises those who know it only as a seaside town. One crosses the Ferdinandeo Park, climbs the hills that form the natural amphitheatre on which the city lies, and the relationship between Trieste and nature is revealed in all its strength: the sea in front, the Karst behind, the sky above, and in between a city that has never ceased to be wild.

As you ascend, Trieste stretches out beneath your feet in a marvellous pattern of lights reflecting on the sea - a luminous nativity scene that widens with every metre of elevation gain, with the Victory Lighthouse and the Audace pier acting as cardinal points in the darkness. On clear winter nights, beyond the expanse of lights, you can make out the snowy silhouettes of the Julian Alps - and you can understand why those who live here say that in Trieste the sea and the mountains are one and the same.

Val Rosandra by Night: The Senses Awaken

Once you reach the Karst ridge, you descend into the Rosandra Valley/Dolina Glinščice: a wild valley, the only one in Italy with a stream flowing on the surface of the Karst, set in a nature reserve that holds a concentration of biodiversity rare in its size. Vertical walls of white limestone rise up to a height of three hundred metres - the same walls where in the 1930s Emilio Comici, the legendary mountaineer from Trieste and pioneer of the sixth degree, trained before his Dolomite exploits. Comici saw Val Rosandra as a perfect natural gym, and to this day, local climbers still climb those routes that bear his name.

In winter, the valley takes on an even more intense character: the torrent is swollen, the air is biting, ice forms on the rocks and the technical trails that run through it at night become challenging in a way that tests concentration and sure-footedness. One concentrates on one's senses - the sounds of the water flowing through the rocks, the scent of the damp earth, the chill of the winter air on one's skin - testing oneself and the darkness.

The Bagnoli main aid station: Hot Pizza in the Heart of the Night

The legendary main aid station at the Comunella in Bagnoli della Rosandra/Boljunec is transformed into a large refreshment area where hot pizzas served right at dinner time await. A moment of refreshment and sharing in the heart of the race, where the warmth of the oven and the warmth of the people come together in an energy that recharges legs and spirit.

The New Panoramic Route: Basovizza and the Path of Origins

From Basovizza/Bazovica, the old monotonous stretch of past editions has been replaced by a spectacular route that takes Sentiero CAI 1 in the direction of Sistiana - the same route of the very first editions of La Corsa della Bora, a return to the origins that has the flavour of a rediscovery. One runs with Trieste at one's feet - a carpet of lights pulsating in the night - and the Adriatic reflecting the moon on the horizon.

The route is entirely overlooked: to the right the illuminated city descends towards the sea, to the left on clear winter nights the snow-covered profiles of Monte Nevoso, Tricorno and the Julian Alps stand out, so clear that they seem just a stone's throw away. This is the stretch where the relationship between Trieste, the Karst and the mountains can be felt with the power of a blow to the chest - the same emotion that prompted the founders of the Corsa della Bora to choose this very trail for the first edition.

From the Opicina Obelisk to the Miramare Castle: The Gulf by Night

You reach the Obelisk of Opicina/Opčine, a historic viewpoint on the Karst terrace overlooking the entire Gulf. From here you do not take the famous Strada Napoleonica - the scenic promenade built in 1821 to link Opicina to Prosecco, a six-kilometre balcony suspended between the Karst ridge and the sea that is one of the most beautiful in Europe - but you do take a short stretch, just enough to savour the vertigo, before heading downhill through the Bovedo forest.

The Bovedo is a dense and craggy scrub of holm oaks, manna ashes and hornbeams that plunges from the Karst ridge down to the sea in a leap of almost three hundred metres: a vertical, damp and silent forest, where the light of the headlights is lost among the trunks and the sound of the wind at altitude gives way to the dripping of moisture among the leaves. The descent is swift and steep, and deposits the runners on the Barcola/Barkovlje promenade - the Trieste people's beach, deserted and surreal in the night.

We run towards the Miramare Castle by going up the Sissi Staircase - the monumental stone staircase that Empress Elisabeth of Austria used to climb to reach the castle grounds from the coastal paths. Sissi loved Trieste and Miramare deeply: she stayed there regularly, seeking in the sea and in nature that refuge from the rigidity of the Viennese court that was the guiding thread of her restless life. The Habsburg castle, commissioned by Archduke Maximilian and Princess Charlotte of Belgium, is a fairy-tale vision in the dark, with its illuminated white towers that seem to float between sea and sky.

The Contovello Ascent: Stone, Vineyards and the Scent of the Sea

From Miramare, one ascends to Contovello/Kontovel - a jewel of Karst stone houses perched on the cliffs, surrounded by the vine terraces where the legendary Karst wine is born. Here the soil is so stingy and the wind so strong that every bunch of grapes is an achievement - and the result is a wine of unparalleled character.

These steep hills between Contovello and Prosecco are the cradle of the world's most famous wine: the village of Prosecco, a few kilometres from here, gave its name to the wine of the same name before production moved to the Veneto region. But the Trieste Karst has maintained a wine identity all its own, concentrated on indigenous grape varieties that do not exist elsewhere: the Vitovska, mineral and savoury white that tastes of Karst stone and sea breeze; the Istrian Malvasia, fragrant and rounded; the Glera, the original Prosecco grape variety that still grows here on its land of origin. Wines of extreme terroir, children of the bora, the sun and a red earth rich in iron that barely covers the limestone rock.

The ascent through the narrow streets of the village, with the scent of the sea mingling with that of heated stone, is one of the most intimate and evocative passages of the entire race. You run between dry stone walls bordering centuries-old vineyards, with the Gulf widening behind you with every metre of altitude gained.

The Night Finale: Sage Trail, Vedetta Weiss and the Barbari Coast

From Santa Croce, take the Trail Tiziana Weiss, also called Sage Trail for the expanses of wild sage that perfume the air and grow luxuriantly among the stones of the Karst. The path is named after Tiziana Weiss, a young mountaineer from Trieste who lost her life at only twenty-six years of age in 1978 while descending the Pale di San Martino - a short but luminous life, consecrated to the mountains and nature, whose spirit lives on in this path suspended between sky and sea.

It crosses the Fishermen's Path - one of the oldest paths in the Karst, where Slovenian fishermen of Aurisina/Nabrežina came down with their zoppoli towards the marina of Canovella degli Zoppoli/Pri Čupah - and you reach the Vedetta Weiss, a panoramic stone terrace 159 metres above sea level. At the foot of the lookout lies a bunker, silent testimony to the Gladio organisation that had a “hideout” here between 1963 and 1970.

This stretch is covered at night, arriving from Contovello. You can feel the crisp sea air in the dark, the reflections of Trieste's lights and the boats in the Gulf replacing the daytime panorama. The Costa dei Barbari in the dark is an ancestral passage, where the sound of the sea beneath your feet is the only compass. The final dive towards Bora Village in PortoPiccolo marks the end of the first half of the race.

Main aid station - PortoPiccolo (km 61.1)

Part 2 - The Day

The Ascent from Alba: PortoPiccolo and the White Cliffs

Competitors tackle this ascent after the PortoPiccolo night main aid station, with the legs of the first half of the race but the spirit renewed by hot showers and a full meal. In the dark or at the first light of dawn, the ascent from the cliffs takes on a completely different dimension.

The white cliffs rise in the first morning light: the same as the day before, but different — as things always are when you are tired and still standing. The climb is the same, the sea the same. What changes is who climbs it.

The Rilke Path: Poetry Terrace on the Adriatic

The Sentiero Rilke in full morning light. After the darkness of Val Rosandra and the streets of Trieste in the night, the white of the cliffs and the blue of the Adriatic have a chromatic intensity that is hard to take in. Two kilometres where tiredness becomes landscape, and landscape becomes fuel for the legs that come after.

The Borgo di Duino: Between the Castle and the Pizza delle Cravatte Rosse

Duino/Devin, the castle, the White Lady in the rock: you pass it for the second time, but now in full daylight with the legs of the night behind you. The Cravatte Rosse aid station — hot pizza, volunteers who recognise you — is one of those moments you remember when you tell the story of the Bora Ultra.

Mount Ermada: Where the Karst Becomes a Mountain

Monte Ermada — Grmada in Slovenian, 323 metres — appears again with the same gentle slopes, the same pine and beech forests, the same views. At km 65+ of the Bora Ultra, this plateau has a different flavour: not discovery, but confirmation. Those who reach it know they can finish.

The Medeazza Crossroads: Where Paths Separate

Beyond Mount Ermada, the territory opens out into a picturesque stretch of karst heathland dotted with terraced vineyards, dolines and drystone walls, until it reaches Medeazza/Medjavas - village of stone houses where the Italian Karst looks towards Slovenia.

Here the routes split: this is the most fascinating fork in La Corsa della Bora, where one branch heads towards the border paths and the village of San Pelagio/Šempolaj, while the other leaves Italy and enters Slovenia, passing through Jamiano/Jamlje e Doberdò/Doberdob along almost unexplored paths. After the refreshment stop in Medeazza - where the energy of the volunteers is already a bonus - each runner sets off on his or her own path towards the wildest heart of the Karst.

Beyond the Border: Slovenia in the Light of Day

From Medeazza/Medjavas the second part of the race leaves Italy to cross the Slovenian border and enter the wildest heart of the Carso/Kras. After the night and the main aid station, this is the stretch where daylight changes everything: abandoned trails, fortifications from the Great War, Lake Doberdò that appears and disappears - details that would be invisible in the dark and now reveal themselves with a power that recharges legs and spirit. This is border trail running in its most authentic form.

Beyond the Border: Jamien, Doberdò and the Forgotten Paths

From Medeazza/Medjavas cross the Slovenian border into the wildest heart of the Carso/Kras. You reach the village of Jamiano/Jamlje - small border village where old Cold War signs bear witness to the division of a territory that for centuries was one world.

A climb leads to Trail 79 and then onto small, abandoned paths, rediscovered by La Corsa della Bora in recent editions. Almost unexplored stretches through fields, remains of fortifications from the First World War and breathtaking views: from the peaks one can simultaneously see the Adriatic Sea, Lake Doberdò/Doberdob - karstic sheet of water that appears and disappears according to the whims of underground hydrology - and the snow-capped mountains of the Julian Alps. Sea, lake and mountains merge into a single horizon that sums up the border soul of these lands.

From Sella Zolla we descend back down to the valley floor and then climb back up to Italy to reach the Lupinc Great War Park, where memory and nature intertwine in one of the most evocative places in the Trieste Karst.

The Great War Lupinc Park: Memory between Trenches and Living Stone

In the heart of the Trieste Karst, surrounded by the vineyards of the village of Prepotto/Praprot, one enters the Lupinc Škaljunk Park - an open-air museum created by Danilo Lupinc on his own land to mark the centenary of the Great War. A place where memory intertwines with nature and stone tells stories of a century ago.

The path leads through restored trenches, dug into the limestone by Russian prisoners of war in the service of the Austro-Hungarian army. A stone plaque is dedicated to Danilo's grandfather, Anton Terčon, who fell in 1916, and to those prisoners who found fatigue, cold and a land far from home here. The stone cottages along the path were the shepherds' shelters from the sun and bad weather at the beginning of the 20th century - a Karst where daily life and war intertwined seamlessly.

We pass through the atmospheric Grotta Lesa - a natural cavity whose vault has collapsed to create a magical sinkhole, an enchanted clearing reached through a natural stone arch that seems to have been carved by a giant. Russian prisoners used to find refuge there after the days of excavation; today, light filters through the rock walls from above, creating an atmosphere suspended in time. A wooden staircase carved into the rock leads out of the cave and back into the vineyards.

Here, the Karst shows its most authentic face: inseparable history and nature, where the scars of war have been healed by the green woods and the patient work of those who still cultivate this land.

The Descent to Santa Croce: The Rediscovered Sea

Leaving Lupinc Park, the route begins its descent towards the sea. It is a section that takes your breath away - literally and metaphorically - as the terrain tilts towards the Adriatic and the horizon opens up with a violence of beauty that is impossible to get used to.

The route runs towards Santa Croce/Križ - a picturesque Karst village of narrow stone streets and houses perched on the cliffs, once a village of Slovenian fishermen who climbed from the coast along the Sentiero della Salvia (Sage Trail) to the lookouts from which they spotted schools of tuna in the Gulf. The Fishing Museum in Santa Croce recounts this thousand-year-old tradition, where the slaughter of tuna was a collective ritual in which the entire village participated - men, women and children - because the survival of the community depended on those fish.

The last kilometres overlooking the sea offer a view that sweeps from the Slovenian coast to the Grado lagoon, with Trieste stretching along its gulf in the distance. The sun illuminates the white cliffs, the blue of the water and the dark green of the maritime pines in a picture that no photograph can really render.

Twice: The Same Trait, Two Different Worlds

The last 6 km are covered for the second time, but in broad daylight - a fascinating peculiarity that gives two radically different experiences of the same stretch. The first time wrapped in the silence of the night; the second time enjoying every detail of the landscape.

The Day Finale: Sage Trail, Vedetta Weiss and the Barbari Coast

This year, from the village of Santa Croce/Križ, all the routes of La Corsa della Bora, which in past editions were divided, now merge into a single, spectacular final stretch along the paths that connect Santa Croce and PortoPiccolo. For the competitors of the Bora Ultra it is the moment of revelation: the same path trodden in the dark a few hours earlier now shows itself in all its beauty.

You run flat, elevated above the sea, on a natural terrace offering a total view of the Gulf of Trieste: from Punta Salvore to Istria, from the Miramare Castle to the Grado lagoon, with the infinite shades of sumac red, the shimmering white of the karst stone and the dark green of the juniper bushes. On clear bora days, the atmosphere is so transparent that the gaze is lost beyond the horizon.

The route continues through vineyards, karst heathland and pine and beech forests until it reaches the village of Borgo San Mauro - and from here, after many years, the final descent to PortoPiccolo passes again through the rocky Costa dei BarbariSheer cliffs overlooking crystal-clear water, coves of white pebbles and vegetation that in summer is perfumed with the scent of the Mediterranean maquis and in winter gives way to the saltiness that accompanies the last steps before the finish line.

The final dive towards the Bora Village in PortoPiccolo completes the circle: we set off from Trieste in the dead of night, crossed the vastness of the Karst – towns, mountains, borders, Slovenia and back – and return to the sea, with two races under our belts and an unforgettable story.