{"id":100633,"date":"2026-07-29T05:16:03","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T05:16:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.s1trail.com\/roadbook-s1-bora-ultra\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T16:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T16:52:09","slug":"roadbook-s1-bora-ultra","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.s1trail.com\/en\/roadbook-s1-bora-ultra\/","title":{"rendered":"Roadbook S1 Bora Ultra \u2014 the route trail by trail"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ROADBOOK<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roadbook S1 Bora Ultra \u2014 the route trail by trail<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

116.2 km in two acts, the night from Trieste and the day in the Slovenian Karst: every CAI trail and every race link, in the order you meet them.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The S1 Bora Ultra is a journey in two acts: the night from Trieste to PortoPiccolo, then the day from PortoPiccolo across the Slovenian Karst and back. The 116.2 km are the exact concatenation of two courses: the first half coincides with the S1 Trieste Ultra, the second with the S1 TransKarst Ultra. This page describes them in the order you meet them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 1 \u2014 The night, from Trieste to PortoPiccolo<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The urban prologue<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It all begins in the heart of Trieste\/Trst in the early evening, while the city is still buzzing with life: an Italian, Slavic, Germanic, Jewish and Greek crossroads, where Joyce wrote Ulysses, Svevo invented Zeno's conscience and Saba kept his bookshop on via San Nicol\u00f2. The first kilometre crosses piazza Unit\u00e0 d'Italia and the old town at a controlled pace, an urban prologue no other trail race can offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The night climb and the Val Rosandra<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Leaving the centre, the course climbs through the urban parks of Trieste, from the Parco del Ferdinandeo towards the hills forming the natural amphitheatre the city lies in, with the lights reflected on the sea as a backdrop. 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 Glin\u0161\u010dice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaving CAI 015, the course 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 is the only valley in Italy with a stream running on the surface of the Karst: its vertical walls of white limestone, up to three hundred metres high, were Emilio Comici's training ground in the 1930s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Bagnoli to Bottazzo<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From Bagnoli the route continues on CAI 046 towards Crogole\/Kroglje and the Crogole lookout, with brief overlaps with the Alpe Adria Trail and CAI 001. It 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 returns to CAI 001, reaching Bottazzo\/Bota\u010d with some stretches shared with the Vertikala SPDT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basovizza, San Lorenzo and the Obelisk<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From Bottazzo the course climbs on forest tracks towards Basovizza\/Bazovica, where it takes CAI 044 \u2014 Sentiero Ressel, returns to CAI 001, passes San Lorenzo\/Jezero and continues to the Opicina Obelisk\/Op\u010dine. This is the stretch that follows CAI 001 towards Sistiana, used by the very first editions of the Corsa della Bora, with Trieste at your feet like a carpet of lights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Obelisk to Barcola and Miramare<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

At the Obelisk the course leaves CAI 001 and takes CAI 012 \u2014 Sentiero Nicol\u00f2 Cobolli, passing close to Monte Gurca and the cave of the same name; in this sector it also uses a short stretch of the Strada Napoleonica (1821). After brief crossings with CAI 001, the Alpe Adria Trail and the Vertikala SPDT, it drops through the Bosco del Bovedo to the Barcola\/Barkovlje waterfront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Barcola the course follows viale Miramare and the coastal stretch of the Topolini, climbs back up to Miramare Castle by the Scalinata di Sissi and takes CAI 009 uphill, the trail between Miramare and Contovello whose upper part overlaps with the Sentiero dei Pescatori\/Ribi\u0161ka pot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Contovello to PortoPiccolo<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From Contovello\/Kontovel, a village of stone houses among the Vitovska and Malvasia Istriana terraces, the course alternates stretches of CAI 001 with links along the Karst edge; it crosses the Strada della Salvia\/\u017dajbljeva pot, shares part of the Aurisina educational trail\/U\u010dna pot Nabre\u017eina and, near the industrial area of Aurisina Cave, close to the BRT\/Bartolini depot, leaves CAI 001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reaches Borgo San Mauro on local roads, follows a short stretch of CAI 023 \u2014 Sentiero Tiziana Weiss and closes the first half on the finale shared by every distance: the Vedetta Weiss, 159 metres above the sea with a bunker of the Gladio network at its foot, and the Costa dei Barbari, run in the dark with only the sound of the sea as a compass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The junction: the PortoPiccolo life base, km 61.2<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At PortoPiccolo the race changes face. This is where the S1 Trieste Ultra track ends and the S1 TransKarst Ultra track begins: on the official track the junction point corresponds to coordinates 45.76352, 13.63751. Anyone running the S1 Bora Ultra can decide to stop here and be classified in the S1 Trieste Ultra, since the two races have shared the same course up to this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 2 \u2014 The day, from PortoPiccolo into the Slovenian Karst and back<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The second half follows the S1 TransKarst Ultra in full, but experienced on the legs of the night and in daylight: the climb from the White Cliffs and the Sentiero Rilke, already crossed in the dark a few hours earlier, now reveal themselves in the contrast between the white rock and the blue of the Adriatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the White Cliffs to Duino<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The course climbs from 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. It follows it to Duino\/Devin, crossing the village in front of Duino Castle and the White Lady. From Duino it takes CAI 001a \u2014 Sentiero del Mitreo and, at the Mithraeum Cave, leaves it for CAI 033.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medeazza and the long branch<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The course moves from CAI 033 to CAI 003a, which leads to Medeazza\/Medjavas. Here, where the S1 Half Trail and the S1 Borderless Trail turn towards Monte Ermada, the S1 Bora Ultra takes the long branch towards Jamiano together with the S1 TransKarst Ultra: it follows CAI 003 \u2014 Alta Via del Carso in several sections, with stretches shared with the Vertikala SPDT, crosses the Bosco Flondar and passes close to the ruins of the Casali Flondar as far as Jamiano\/Jamlje.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Jamiano area it briefly follows the SR 519 di Jamiano and then uses CAI 075 in several sections, alternating it with short deviations of its own; it does not reach the SR 55, the formal end point of CAI 075, which the race track leaves before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonetti, Hill 208 South and the border<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The course enters the Bonetti\/Boneti sector and Hill 208 South, skirting the Abisso Bonetti, the Grotta dell'Artiglieria, the Grotta 2\u00aa di Bonetti and the cave emplacement with the plaque of the 2nd Sappers Engineer Regiment, 190th Company \u2014 a concrete slab from 1917, documented in the Pro Hereditate register<\/a>. The route passes close to these structures but does not go through them. This whole sector belongs to the Isonzo front whose sites are retraced by the Walk of Peace\/Pot miru<\/a>, the cross-border memorial itinerary linking over three hundred First World War sites between Italy and Slovenia, from the Alps to the Adriatic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Near Issari\/Hi\u0161arji, having left CAI 075, it follows a short link of the Valichi del Carso and takes CAI 079 \u2014 Sentiero Abramo Schmid, named after the colonel and Karst scholar: the trail<\/a> was born of border patrolling after the Second World War and used to be called the \u00abkerb path\u00bb. It follows the border zone as far as Monte Kremenjak, 235-236 metres, and on to Quota 219\/\u0160pik<\/a>, from where you can see the Adriatic, the port and the shipyard of Monfalcone\/Tr\u017ei\u010d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Slovenian Karst and the way back<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

A steep zigzag descent follows the border line; on the Slovenian side the course uses a stretch associated with the grani\u010dari\/grani\u010darji, the Yugoslav border guards, and climbs back on a gentler gradient towards Sela na Krasu, in the municipality of Miren-Kostanjevica. It then heads towards Vale and re-enters Italy through the border woods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After re-entering Italy it meets CAI 003 again and follows it as far as CAI 032; the latter leads through the Precenico area to San Pelagio\/\u0160empolaj. 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\/Kri\u017e.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lupinc Great War Park is an open-air museum created by Danilo Lupinc on his own land: trenches dug into the limestone by Russian prisoners of war in the service of the Austro-Hungarian army, a plaque dedicated to his grandfather Anton Ter\u010don, who fell in 1916, and the Grotta Lesa, a natural doline with a collapsed roof reached through a stone arch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The finale, for the second time<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From Santa Croce\/Kri\u017e, once a village of Slovenian fishermen, the course uses stretches of CAI 001 and coastal and educational links, then three short fragments of CAI 023 \u2014 Sentiero Tiziana Weiss, followed by non-CAI links to PortoPiccolo. The final kilometres retrace in broad daylight the Vedetta Weiss and the Costa dei Barbari crossed in the dark a few hours earlier, with a view stretching from the Slovenian coast to the Grado lagoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final plunge down to the Bora Village at PortoPiccolo closes the circle: you set off from Trieste in the night, crossed the Karst in all its breadth \u2014 city, plateau, border, Slovenia and back \u2014 and you return to the sea, with two races in your legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Technical sequence \u2014 first half (km 0-61.2)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
CAI 015 \u2192 Vertikala SPDT\/links \u2192 CAI 046 \u2192 CAI 001 \u2192 non-CAI track \u2192 CAI 039 \u2192 CAI 001 \u2192 forest tracks \u2192 CAI 044 \u2192 CAI 001 \u2192 CAI 012 \u2192 non-CAI descent \u2192 CAI 009 \u2192 CAI 001 and links \u2192 short CAI 023 \u2192 PortoPiccolo<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Technical sequence \u2014 second half (km 61.2-116.2)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
CAI 001 \u2192 CAI 001a \u2192 CAI 033 \u2192 CAI 003a \u2192 CAI 003 \u2192 short SR 519 \u2192 CAI 075 \u2192 link \u2192 CAI 079 (Sentiero Abramo Schmid) \u2192 Slovenian non-CAI stretch \u2192 CAI 003 \u2192 CAI 032 \u2192 links \u2192 short CAI 010 \u2192 Lupinc Park (non-CAI) \u2192 CAI 035 \u2192 Fornace\/SP 5 link \u2192 CAI 010 \u2192 CAI 001 and links \u2192 short sections of CAI 023 \u2192 PortoPiccolo<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The race forks in the second half<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
From the life base onwards the S1 Bora Ultra shares the opening kilometres with the distances starting from PortoPiccolo. The split points are verified on the official 2027 tracks and the distances given are those of the races starting from PortoPiccolo, not those of the S1 Bora Ultra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n