About the Carso

Just behind Monfalcone starts the Carso. The limestone rises up into a plateau between 100 and 150 m full of curious depressions, scattered with stones and covered with exuberant Mediterranean maquis vegetation. It’s very dry. A lot of the plants are armed with thorns to protect their hard won growth. The water from occasional showers is sucked into the ground before it can go anywhere forming numerous sink-holes and patches of reddish earth that has washed away and then dried out again.
The Carso continues on gradually higher towards Trieste and into Slovenia where it is called Kras. Under the Austro-Hungarian empire it was also called Karst in German, a name familiar to geologists for this kind of honey-combed limestone terrain. The Monfalcone or Isonzo Carso is separated from the Carso further East by a good sized valley called simply il Vallone, so that it forms a quite discreet and well defined area.
This has become Thomas’ and my favourite terrain for mountain-biking in the region (notwithstanding risk of puncture by thorns). It’s close to home and in an hour or two you can get in a decent ride with plenty of climbing and off-roading, and lots to discover.
From a natural point of view, the flora is very rich, although the Carso is dry it can also be quite green and full of flowers. I particularly like the slender light blue thistle-like flowers that are everywhere in the summer (eryngium amethystium). Because of the geology and micro-climate you can even find normally Alpine flora in some pockets. There are animals too, right up to small deer and plenty of birds and butterflies. You can also observe strangely worn rocks and a lake in a dead end valley that comes and goes (Doberdo).
The views on a clear day are wonderful with to the South the whole sweep of the Gulf of Trieste right across to Croatia, to the West the plain stretching away towards Venice with church bell-towers sticking up here and there, to the North the distant high wall of the Alps, especially the Julians with Canin and Mangart and to the East the higher hills in Slovenia.
It’s an area full of history too. There are old tracks edged by dry-stone walls, small fields and vineyards still worked in the fertile depressions and a few picturesque villages. Then quite shockingly the scars of numerous First World War trenches. These military workings represent various front lines and fall back positions of the Italians and Austrians. Yes, this pretty area was once the scene of insane trench warfare in a barren lunar landscape (they burned down all the vegetation) with tens of thousands of casualties. On the West flank at Redipuglia there’s a huge war cemetry and at the highest point on Monte San Michele a museum.
The poet Ungaretti came back from Paris to fight for Italy out of patriotic choice, and ended up serving on the Carso.. Somewhat sobered by his experience he wrote a fine collection of short poems encapsulating how it felt to be there, mentioning after each one the time and place of their composition. At Easter I went with Julia, who was studying Ungaretti, around the various locations reading the poems where they were written. It was quite a moving exercise in literature and history, imagining these peaceful places in a quite different setting nearly a century ago.
There are some curious war memorials in purest Fascist style from the 1930’s in the oddest places. One is a column (Cippo Corridoni) about 10m high right in the middle of the maquis with stylised fascii and eagles on it and the inscription to “those who by the sacrifice of their lives fecundated the future of labour” - very strange! A quite different sentiment to Ungaretti’s.
There’s even some industrial archeology: on our last outing we found a former soda quarry and the base of a dismantled cable way to take the stones to the quite distant industrial port.
It’s fun to explore up there and the network of tracks has been improved recently so as to facilitate the access of fire-fighters but also cyclists and walkers.. Quite a few trenches have also had the undergrowth removed around them and been excavated with explanatory signs put up. People are redisovering the Carso.
For me though, despite the historic interest, it is the natural beauty and curiosity of the place that attracts me.