The Hapsburg gateway to the world (Trieste)

Member Name: MagdaDH

Product:	Trieste
Date:	26/10/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: fascinating mix

Disadvantages: Italy has better

I have always wanted to visit Trieste: it's from Trieste that the heroes of the favourite adventure books of my childhood set on their first journey, it's Trieste that has been the gateway to the truly far away places for those who lived in the mostly land-locked provinces of Austro-Hungarian empire further north, it's in Trieste that the civilised West started to gradually change into the wilder and more mysterious East.

Once the principal port of the Hapsburg monarchy, Trieste's heyday dates to the 19th century, when it was the fourth largest city of the Empire and later on an important cultural centre. It became a part of the unified Italy after World War I, and after WW2 it stayed in Italy (although Trieste and its surrounding area was technically an independent city state administered partially by a joint American and British military, and partially by the Yugoslav army). In 1954, most of the US-British zone was incorporated into Italy, and the Yugoslav zone (plus a bit of the other) became part of Yugoslavia (Croatia and Slovenia).

Nowadays Trieste is a bit of a backwater, apparently with a larger than average proportion of population of or approaching the retirement age. It's more sedate and reserved than other Italian cities - even in the generally less exuberant North (though the Vespa traffic at busy times is as hair raising as anywhere else) - and its architecture is dominated by grand buildings that combine the Austrian monumentalism with the even more grandiose 19th century Roman kind, tempered by older Italian influences and the Slavic touches. Even the train station is truly grand!

It's still a busy port and very much a workaday place; many of the buildings are still covered with the decades of black, industrial grime, although the central, most touristy areas have been or are in the process of being cleaned up.

We spent three days in Trieste, mostly just walking around - and it's by walking around that one can get the best feel for the city. We didn't go to museums (apart from the castle ones) and we didn't go to one of the chief Trieste attractions - Castello Miramare, a 19th century edifice surrounded by extensive parkland, built by Archduke Maximilian for his wife Charlotte.

Most of the central Trieste is of some interest, with little of it being exceptional, but there are some areas that definitely shouldn't be missed.

Piazza dell'a Unita d'Italia is the largest sea-facing square in Italy and is almost ridiculously grand. There are several cafes and restaurants round its perimeter but they seem Lilliputian, dwarfed by by the sheer expanse of the square and the ornate buildings that surround it.

The area round Grand Canal (which isn't particularly grand, being at most a few hundred yards long) is on a more human scale, with the canal banks lined with bars and restaurants and prettily lit up in the evenings. The domes of the Serb Orthodox Church of St Spiridion raise to the left of the canal, competing for attention with the even larger (and also greenish) dome of the church of Antonio Taumaturgo‎ at the end.

A bronze, life-sized statue of James Joyce (who lived in Trieste for over 15 years) stands on the bridge over the Canal, the giant of modernist prose caught during an evening stroll. On another bridge across the Canal, hundreds of padlocks bearing scribbled names of couples are chained to the lamppost in a ritual confirmation of the seriousness of their bond.

The old town rises steeply in a sequence of narrow lanes beyond Piazza dell'a Unita towards the castle San Giusto. We climbed up the steps behind the Commune building and then along Via Della Cattedrale, with a stop at the small Garden San Michele, where teenagers lounged lazily in the midday heat by the modern fountain and small children played in the paddling pool by a small community centre.

We took a bus for the last few hundred yards to the castle, adjacent to the magnificent Romanesque cathedral church of San Giusto and remains of a Roman forum. The interiors of the cathedral are very worth at least a peak: gold and red frescoes with a distinctly Byzantine feel (I know, I know the mosaic in the apse is 12th century Venetian, but a lot of Venetian pre-Renaissance art has this Byzantine feel - just look inside the San Marco!).

The castle offers a perfect set of 16th century battlements, grand views of the city and the whole bay of Trieste and surprisingly green, wooded hills beyond the city. In the dungeons of the castle there is a lapidary with a good selection of Roman remains, including some lovely mosaics.

Trieste has a heritage tramway, with handsome carriages climbing up the steep hills to the north of the city to a small village of Opicina, cooler, quieter and - just like Slovenian Koper on the other side of the border - bilingual in its official signage, but with no particular interest apart from being the tram terminus. The ride itself is fun (at least for the children and more childlike adults), the slope so steep in places it feels like a funicular rather than a normal tram.

The best stop to get off is actually a bit before the terminus in Opicina, at the obelisk marking the beginning of what's known as Via Napoleonica, a never-completed engineering attempt to provide road access for the troops during Bonaparte's invasion. A viewing terrace shaded with trees and with a water tap / drinking fountain (Trieste is full of those) provides a restful stop, but the city below is enveloped in a haze that often develops on hot days in the Mediterranean.

Several walking routes through the woods start at the obelisk (the hills around Trieste underwent an extensive re-forestation programme in the 19th century) and if it wasn't for the children we might have been tempted by the path shaded by the fragrant pines, but as it was we caught the next tram down for an ice-cream and a nap in an air-conditioned room of the pensione.

**

I liked Trieste despite - or maybe because - it not being among the top-list Italian destinations. It's a strangely fascinating city, and another one during the whole trip that seems to stand on the cross-roads, where cultures and influences meet, clash and mix to produce something uniquely of its own.

Summary: grand buildings with a mix of influences