On Saturday, September 6, 2025, the Walk2spirit team conducted a training session for guides on the Iter Goritiense. During the morning bus ride from Gorizia to Aquileia, we provided 15 interested individuals from both sides of the border with information on how this new cross-border pilgrimage route came to be. It was launched during the European Capital of Culture GO!2025 and the jubilee year.

We also presented technical details about the 84-kilometer-long route and its stages, and we informed them on how to prepare for such a journey, what the optimal equipment is, and what to pack in a backpack. Given the significant interest in organized guided tours of the Iter Goritiense, which has already been walked by over a thousand people, the help of trained guides will be very useful in the future.

In Aquileia, the future guides of the Iter Goritiense walkers, under expert guidance, visited the basilica and the early Christian museum. They also walked along the Via Sacra, past the former port. This was followed by a slightly longer walk through the fields to the village of San Lorenzo, and from there by bus to Monte San michele and the World War I museum, where they learned details about the course of the war in that area.

We continued our walk with the participants past the preserved fortified positions and trenches, and across the rugged Karst landscape all the way to Vrh. From there, we drove to the peace monument on Cerje, where we also informed the group about the consequences of the largest fire in the history of the Republic of Slovenia, which raged in the Karst in the summer of 2022. On Cerje, which offers a beautiful panoramic view, there was also time for lunch.

Next, we passed Mirenski Grad and the Miren cemetery, a part of which remained on the Yugoslav side after World War II and the other part on the Italian side, and then on to Gorica and Nova Gorica, where we presented points of interest along the way directly during the ride. We stretched our legs together on the unique Trg Evrope (Piazza della Transalpina), and also walked the last few hundred meters to the basilica of Sveta Gora, where the Iter Goritiense ends.

The study tour concluded with a visit to the Center Mir in dobro on Sveta Gora, which was renovated as part of the cross-border Interreg project Walk2spirit. It is primarily intended for walkers on the Iter Goritiense, but other visitors to Sveta Gora are also welcome. During the descent into the valley, there was a feeling of mutual satisfaction on the bus with the realization that the team taking care of the Iter Goritiense is growing.