For this new years eve, we travelled to the Karst in Trieste. A quick internet research promised well-secured routes, climbing areas close to the city and good food – what else could a climber dream of? Trieste has around 200,000 inhabitants and is characterised by its proximity to Slovenia, Croatia and Austria. During the Habsburg monarchy, Trieste was a Mediterranean harbour and a hub of the Austro-Hungarian economy, which can still be seen today in the imposing buildings from this period. The harbour is still the city’s major economic factor. So it’s no wonder that you can look directly out to the sea from the impressive Town Hall Square. More important for the climbers? The caffeine supply. Trieste is known for its coffee house culture, which is in no way inferior to that of Vienna. As you can see, there is enough cultural program for rest days.
Instead of going to Arco for the Easter Holidays, we decided to try something new and explore the sport climbing crags in South Tyrol in Italy. We started in Innsbruck by bike and had a first stop at ‘Ritten’, a high plateau right above Bozen, to climb there for three days. After that, we continued our bike trip through Meran to Latsch, a big sportclimbing crag in Vinschgau. Since we were only binking, we decided to go back to Innsbruck via Reschenpass to have a round trip, but if you don’t want to bike the whole Vinschgau, Meran, and Bozen are easily accessible by train and busses as well.
For me, Finale Ligure is one of the most beautiful climbing spots I have visited so far! It is less crowded than Arco and has a vast variety of routes for sport climbing and multipitch climbing. I went there with a friend in the summer in June, which was nice. As you can find some sectors in the forest it’s also fine for warmer temperatures. But if you have the opportunity to go there in the spring or at the end of the summer, the temperature might be even better for climbing. During our stay we enjoyed this amazing spot a lot.
Arco is one of the most famous climbing areas in Europe with excellent climbing on limestone in a beautiful setting. It offers perfect climbing opportunities all year round. Since you can climb there even in winter, my friend Judith and I left Innsbruck in January by train and bike to escape the snow and enjoy the Italian sun.
Cadarese is a famous tradclimbing area, known for its incredible gneiss rock that offers unique cracks and challenging lines for beginners as well as advanced trad climbers (from 4a to 9a). If you want to learn how to place cams and nuts, you can even practice on some bolted routes. Spread over several sectors, the climbing area lies shaded in the forest. Cracks of all kinds – from finger to chimney – line up here. Although the little village Cadarese in Northern Italy (Piemont) appears to be pretty much out of nowhere it can be reached by public transport and allows climbers once they arrived there to reach the crag easily without the car.
