We left Udine, tired from the cycling and the late-ish night, and headed for Grado and the sea. The Alpe Adria route from Udine follows a rather easy 60km trail. The first part was fine, although not massively scenic, weaving in the outer suburbs of Udine and then into flat farmlands. 
The route then takes you through Palmanova – with an amazing old town in the shape of a star – and Aquileia – home of the largest preserved roman ruins in the Mediterranean. From here, it was about 10km onto Grado, on its thin long peninsular jutting out into the Adriatic.
We had read that a lot of campsites close down at the end of September, but as there were about 8 in and around Grado, and the weather was still warm, we figured some would still be open. Rookie mistake. We cycled to the first one – closed. On to the second – closed. By the third we were starting to worry. As the sun was setting we came up on the fourth campsite. Again – closed. Arrgghhhh!
There was a large serviced apartment complex next to the closed campsite, with a staffed reception, so we ventured in to ask what else was around. “No campsites open” was the reply, and what was worse was that the guy thought there were hardly any hotels open either. It was almost dark, we weren’t sure where the centre of town was to even start asking around for a hotel, and we were out of energy.
By this time, the continual cycling, and previous days efforts were catching up with us, and we were both about ready to sleep on the side of the road. We made a decision to cut our losses and snuck into a patch of bush out the back of the campsite, tucking our tent as best we could behind some bushes, just out of view from the road. We then bunkered down, in behind the shelter of the tent, with a small light and the mosquitoes to keep us company to make a quick stealth dinner. Unsurprisingly, neither of us got a huge amount of sleep that night.
We woke before dawn, and packed up quickly. We timed badly and exited the bushes just as a lady was walking past. She looked rather shocked and tried to start asking us something – to which we just smiled and moved on quickly. We had breakfast about 5 kms down the track, which just out of chance happened to also be one of the worst cereals we had ever tasted. We weren’t sure if things could be much worse at this point, but soon after, it started to rain.
We pushed on for a thankfully easy 30 kms to Monfalcone, and hunted down some internet. We had decided the night before we were done with camping for a little while, and were going to book accommodation, as neither of us had any energy reserves for a repeat of the previous night. Monfalcone ended up being rather nice, and we spent a pleasant enough hour or so refueling at a cafe, stocking up from a delightful deli, and booking accommodation in Trieste.
We then followed the coastline towards Trieste, getting occasional views of a very grey ocean and even greyer sky.
As we neared Trieste, the rain became heavier and the cycle paths dried up and we had no option but to cycle on rather busy roads. By the time we arrived at our accommodation we were both pretty over the whole cycling thing. Why is it always so hard???
4ks an hour 