I wake up early and leave home, the blue sky full of the cries of seagulls: “I'm going to have a coffee in the old town”. Grado in the early morning is really special. I grab my Graziella bicycle and start pedalling along Riva Bersaglieri. The fishermen have already returned and are tidying their nets, with three or four people alongside each vessel chatting about fishing and the bora wind with the pescauri (fishermen).

Then, suddenly, something goes click in my mind: “Why not go to the chapel of San Marco?” It is a little little-known, small church on the Cammino Celeste (a pilgrimage path from Grado/Aquileia to Monte Santo di Lussari near the Austrian border) on the lagoon, just a few kilometres from Grado, reached via a small detour along the wonderful cycle path leading to Aquileia.

No sooner said than done. I leave the Isola d’Oro (Golden Island) via the swing bridge and immediately join the bicycle trail. The morning air smells of salt and lagoon, and at this time of the morning there are few people on the road, but already some cyclists and pedestrians on the trail. What as I cross the lagoon!. Herons, grebes and cormorants examine me from their lagoon viewpoint.

Very soon, I arrive at Belvedere, carry on a few hundred metres and then turn left, leaving the cycle trail and heading for an abandoned rural building, pedalling along a dirt track in the middle of the Aquileian countryside. Then a bend to the right, a bend to the left and at the end of the straight road I spy a small rise of land where the cultivated countryside gives way to a small pine wood. In the middle of the pine wood stands the church of San Marco with its small cemetery. Legend has it that it was at exactly this point that the saint arrived from Alexandria and that it was here that he began to evangelise these lands.

The lagoon is just a few steps away. An oasis of peace not far from Grado. Now I can go back and enjoy the coffee with an Adriatic tang!