Photo: Simone Mascellari / UnsplashThe Carinthian Door
From Vienna to Ravenna by train. The first door in our twelve-month program.
This is the first trunk in the Doors to Italy program. It runs from Vienna or Villach across the Carnic Alps at Tarvisio Boscoverde, descends into Friuli, takes a half-day to read the Lombard capital at Cividale, drops to the Adriatic at Trieste for three nights, then rides the regional line south through the Po delta at Comacchio and ends in Ravenna, in front of the mosaics that closed the western Roman world.
The trunk is seven days at a workable pace and can be extended to ten if Salento is the eventual horizon. Most travellers will only do the Friulian half (Tarvisio to Trieste, four days). The Adriatic half (Trieste to Ravenna, three days) can be done separately, in either direction, on the same regional rail map.
The Italia in Tour pass covers the Italian regional legs south of the border; the OeBB EuroCity from Vienna and the cross-border service into Tarvisio are off the pass — buy those separately.
- 1CarniaFriuli-Venezia Giulia · Italy
Cross at Tarvisio Boscoverde and stop in the Carnic valleys: Tolmezzo as the base, the mountains the Austrians never crossed for holidays.
- 2Cividale del FriuliUdine · Friuli-Venezia Giulia · Italy
The FUC line from Udine in twenty minutes. The Lombard Temple and the Devil’s Bridge repay the half-day the route plans here.
- 3Trieste, through its writersFriuli-Venezia Giulia · Italy
Three nights on the Adriatic: the literary cafés, the Karst above the city, and a day that belongs to Svevo and Joyce.
- 4ComacchioFerrara · Emilia-Romagna · Italy
Regional line south, then the bus from Ferrara into the lagoon town: eels, canals, flamingos on the salt pans.
- 5RavennaEmilia-Romagna · Italy
End in front of the mosaics. Ravenna closes the route the way it closed the western Roman world.
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