Friday 4th October 2024

Motovun to Kaldir and Return

Today we decided on what looked like the simple cross the valley walk to a winery, enjoy a tasting and then return through the vineyards to home, albeit with a very steep walk back up to the hotel.

Still struggling with a lurgi and low appetite and energy I picked through breakfast before kitting up the the day.

The easy part was leaving hotel and main square to head out the town gate. That was the first 50 metres done.

Nothing like starting the real walk with a nice downhill run on steep cobblestones to get the ankles and toes twitching- but at least we could see the township way off in the distance.

We wend our way through the suburbs – all three streets – before heading down towards the old railway.

On the way we passed a huge dog kennel with a lot of mixed breeds laying quietly , that was until we got near them. Strange thing with dogs here is that they are rarely seen as pets – they have two purposes finding truffles or finding wildlife for the hunters. It’s probably why cats are so prolific around the streets.

If the number of truffle shops is an indication they do a bloody good job. As for the hunting side we might find out more as we make our way through the menu to see if venison is available. We could hear a few baying in the distance and also heard a few gun pops. We had general instructions of ‘ in hunting season be sure you make lots of noise in the forest’. I guess yelling “oh s..t lost again and no more bloody mud” may have sufficed as no near misses.

We didn’t stay on the railway line very long we were either on tracks or wandering through the edges of vineyards. In both cases it was through mud which caked your boots and often you had to pull them out of boggy spots with a pop- hoping they stayed on.

Reached a decision point and when Jane deferred to the note – alas a couple of pages were missing. After a mild panic they were found crumpled in the guide holder.

Having notes didn’t make the going easier and we seemed to go around and up hills in a circuitous route to finally find the town of Kaldir. If it wasn’t for the winery there was not much else going on, other than a house with a lot of ribbons tied to gates , fences and vetsndah’s – so presumed it was a wedding.

Up into the winery to be told our booking was for yesterday, but with a crowd of 2 they managed to squeeze us in. Tried about 5 different wines,including the award winning Teran blend, which were all nice. Bought a sticky to have something to drink as an after dinner pleasure.

They were a small winery selling 160,000 bottles, including overseas markets . Got the full tour of the operation and met the winemaker, a young woman in her 30’s.

A bit of route checking before leaving and we thought we would defer to Maps.me and go off the notes to avoid the walk through an area where it was supposedly muddier than before.

A great call it wasnt, as we wandered through tracks with landslips, walked away from home on many occasions and still ended up in the mud. At one spot Jane’s boots were completed covered. The look on her face suggested a photo wasn’t a good choice.

We eventually found our way onto some solid footing we had trod on the outward journey and plodded our way up the stairs and cobbles to home.

The lesson – probably don’t change routes after 5 wines.

Got home before dark and time to change and wander around town in search of somewhere to dine, only to end up back in our hotel.