Two German schoolteachers from Westphalia were my dormmates last night. The retired one was walking to Jerusalem in stages, that is, he would begin the summer's walk where he had left off last year. He had been doing this since his wife died in 2002. A form of pilgrimage and meditation I guess. He said that he had once found a strange foxglove and planted its seeds in his garden. He had enjoyed very much walking in the Alps, and not visiting villages. His friend was providing company.
Jan Morris, the renowned travel writer, was the reason I was visiting Trieste. If you recall, I was carrying with me a collection of her pieces: Fifty Years of Europe. James first laid eyes on Trieste when he accompanied the occupying Allied forces into Trieste. After 50 years of reportage and writing, she had returned to the city in a 2001 essay: Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere. My poor attempt to summarise is that Trieste is an exemplar of a place that has experienced much turbulent history and has settled into a gentle, somewhat melancholy but not unhappy obscurity. Even the name is suggestive, having just one letter more than the word for sad in several Romance languages. However the name derives from the Roman Tergeste.
Trieste's Italian period began with the arrival of the torpedo boat Audace in 1918, to claim the city for Italy after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The pier where the Audace berthed was subsequently renamed the Molo Audace (page in Italian). The pier gradually became inadequate for commercial shipping and today it's just a pleasant civic facility for anglers and sunbathers. A wind rose on a column commemorates the arrival of the Audace. Prior to that Trieste had been a prominent seaport and commercial centre in the Austro-Hungarian empire, fourth in size after Vienna, Budapest and Prague. (Many people know those three, how many are familiar with Trieste?)
It was a lively and cosmopolitan city, and a list of notables associated with it include: James Joyce, Italo Svevo, Sigmund Freud, Dragotin Kette, Ivan Cankar, Scipio Slataper, and Umberto Saba. Between the wars, the city continued to prosper from commerce and industry. The rise of Italian Fascism saw many Slovenes driven out of Trieste. After WWII, between 1947 and 1954, it entered a period of limbo as a protectorate of the UN in the Free Territory of Trieste. This ended with the ceding of Trieste in Zone A to Italy, and Zone B, comprising a large portion of Istria, to Yugoslavia, and now split between Slovenia and Croatia. There are still significant traces of minorities as this Serbian Orthodox church shows.
With the end of the Cold War, Trieste has begun to rebuild its stature. It is still a major seaport on the Mediterranean for Italy and central European countries, is a commercial centre of some note, is a major coffee port (40% of Italian coffee passes through here; Illy coffee comes from here, the Illy suggestive of Illyria), and has a university and several illustrious institutes, some of which are near Parco Miramare. It's moderately prosperous and seemed to me pleasant to live in, if it were not for the powerful bora. More about that later.
The buildings surrounding the spacious Piazza Unità d'Italia are well-preserved 19th century buildings. It also contains the elaborate Fountain of the Four Continents, an animal each representing Europe, America, Asia and Africa (Australia had not been discovered by Europeans yet).
There are many older people sitting in cafes. I couldn't be sure if they were residents or visitors. I didn't need much prompting to have a coffee and cake too. A poster on a column advertised a retrospective of the films of the Italian actress Laura Morante. Another was for the Udin&Jazz (sic) Festival (Udine is a nearby city). Cultural tourism seems to be the hot thing now.
Then I walked up the hill towards the Castle of San Giusto through the Park of Remembrance. Along the way were markers commemorating casualties. So many to mourn in Italy: fallen policemen, firemen, orphans, etc. At the top of the hill were Roman columns.
There was a panoramic view to sea, marred somewhat by construction cranes. I decided that the view wouldn't be much better from the castle so I decided not to go higher. In the picture you are looking towards Miramare.
Down at the bottom, I lunched at a German/Austrian place near the Piazza offering a house special. It turned out to be a potpourri of the various cuisines that meet in this part of Europe: Italian, Austrian, Slavic; a mixed grill with onions, mustard and Adjar sauce. This, as far as I can discover, is a sauce made from red peppers. Lunch was a bit pricey, but good.
A bit of walking around the canals and it was time to quit for the day. This is a statue of James Joyce who worked in Trieste off and on for many years.
And this was a water feature at the head of a pedestrian mall where I had an afternoon gelato.
When I got back to the hostel, the Germans told me that they had done 38km of walking that day. Quite remarkable. While I was napping, a heavy downpour started. Well that settled it, no dining out, I had to dine in the hostel's trattoria. The food was fresh and tasty but the portion rather small for the cost.
The hostel seemed to be trying to be green. There's a motion activated light in the bathroom. Unfortunately it meant that I had to wave my arms every so often while showering or it would go dark. Quite comical actually.
Down at the bottom, I lunched at a German/Austrian place near the Piazza offering a house special. It turned out to be a potpourri of the various cuisines that meet in this part of Europe: Italian, Austrian, Slavic; a mixed grill with onions, mustard and Adjar sauce. This, as far as I can discover, is a sauce made from red peppers. Lunch was a bit pricey, but good.
When I got back to the hostel, the Germans told me that they had done 38km of walking that day. Quite remarkable. While I was napping, a heavy downpour started. Well that settled it, no dining out, I had to dine in the hostel's trattoria. The food was fresh and tasty but the portion rather small for the cost.
The hostel seemed to be trying to be green. There's a motion activated light in the bathroom. Unfortunately it meant that I had to wave my arms every so often while showering or it would go dark. Quite comical actually.
