{"id":100428,"date":"2026-07-23T21:39:37","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T21:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.s1trail.com\/santa-croce-aurisina\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T13:16:02","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T13:16:02","slug":"santa-croce-aurisina","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.s1trail.com\/en\/santa-croce-aurisina\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Croce and Aurisina"},"content":{"rendered":"
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THE AREA<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

Santa Croce and Aurisina<\/h1>\n\n\n

The ancient village of tuna fishermen, and the stone quarries that built Vienna.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Santa Croce<\/strong> (Slovene: Kri\u017e<\/strong>) is an ancient fishing village overlooking the Gulf of Trieste\/Tr\u017ea\u0161ki zaliv, about 200 metres above sea level on the edge of the Trieste Karst, between Prosecco and Aurisina along Provincial Road No. 1; it is the district of Trieste furthest from the city centre. Its houses huddle around small inner courtyards sheltered from the bora, with decorated stone doorways and narrow lanes that often leave no room for cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurisina<\/strong> (Slovene: Nabre\u017eina<\/strong>) is, together with Duino, one of the two main villages in the Municipality of Duino Aurisina\/Devin Nabre\u017eina, and is also home to its town hall (in the hamlet of Aurisina Cave). Santa Croce, on the other hand, comes under the Municipality of Trieste: the two villages belong to separate municipalities and are brought together on this page because they sit side by side on the same Karst edge and are linked by the same trail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two villages are linked by the Sentiero Tiziana Weiss<\/strong>, also known as Sentiero della Salvia<\/strong> \u2014 the same trail that the longer Corsa della Bora races follow on the stretch towards the Costa dei Barbari (see the dedicated page Costa dei Barbari<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to see and why it\u2019s special<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Santa Croce, the village of the \u201ctonnaroti\u201d.<\/strong> Until a few generations ago, Santa Croce was a village of fishermen who specialised in catching tuna with a unique technique: lookouts posted high on the Karst edge watched for the shoals, which gave themselves away by the glint of their scales, and signalled their arrival to the fishermen, who hurried down to the sea for the mattanza \u2014 a communal ritual in which men, women and children all took part, and part of how the village made its living. The practice survived until the last century, and it lives on in the Trieste Coast Fishing Museum<\/strong> (Localit\u00e0 S. Croce 61, opened on 25 September 2016), which displays tools, nets and documents from the fishing tradition of the Slovene communities along the coast between Trieste and the mouths of the Timavo. Open at weekends from April to November, and for groups by appointment \u2014 check the museum\u2019s official website for current opening times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A boat that came from Russia.<\/strong> Among the curiosities of the local fishing tradition is the \u010dupa<\/strong>, a boat of Russian origin hollowed out of a single tree trunk, used in this very area until the mid-20th century (the last surviving example, which had to be hauled ashore every day because there were so few harbours between Trieste and Duino, is now kept at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The churches and the village festival.<\/strong> Santa Croce is home to the Church of the Invention of the Holy Cross (16th\u201318th centuries) and the small church of San Rocco (17th century). Every 29 June the village celebrates the feast of Saints Peter and Paul with processions in folk costume, and in summer there is the traditional football match that symbolically splits the village into two halves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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