Trieste, Italy

I met two Italian friends for the weekend in Trieste. Barbara and Simone and I met a few years ago in Sweden, when I spent a summer teaching there. I lived in a “university guest house” where Simone also lived, and his girlfriend Barbara visited while we were there. It was a great place to live as a visiting faculty member because a variety of visiting scholars from all over the world shared this beautiful mansion. We all had our own rooms and bathrooms and shared common areas (kitchens, living room, garden, etc.). Barbara and Simone became good friends then, so it was great to see them again and to combine it with a visit to Trieste (which Simone also never saw before).

Trieste is in Italy but over the centuries it has belonged to and been influenced by various other cultures, like the Slavs and Austro-Hungarians. But it felt more Italian than Slavic to me, though maybe that’s because I’ve been living in a Slavic country and haven’t been to Italy in 18 years. It’s a large (250,000) industrial port city, somewhat like Rijeka. But it’s much bigger. It also has seafront areas that are not just industrial (unlike Rijeka). We started out our tour at the top, on the originally settled hill where you now get a good overview. There is a beautiful church (cathedral I think) up there and ruins of an old basilica. The church was built on the site of an old Roman temple and has parts dating back to the 3rd century, though most of the current edifice is 1000 to 700 years old I think. There are beautiful mosaics and decorative details in the arches of the nave.

There’s also a castle nearby, but it was closed for renovation. We then wandered down the hill toward the center. Along the way we saw a few more churches and an old Roman amphitheater that was apparently just discovered recently (20 years ago) during construction in that part of town. It’s also being renovated. Eventually we made it to the big town square or piazza, which is huge and surrounded on three sides by impressive 19th century buildings, town hall, cafes, palaces, and businesses, all with decorative facades. There is also a big fountain toward one end of the square. The fourth side of the square is open to the sea. We read that it’s the largest seaside square in Europe.

James Joyce lived in this part of the world for much of his life, first in Pula (in Istria, Croatia), then in Trieste. So we went into one of the cafés on the square, which is quite famous for artists and writers who frequented it, but the waiter told us it was not one of Joyce’s haunts (though he mentioned other writers who patronized them including Hemingway). We later sat down at a café on the canal and saw a plaque proclaiming that Joyce used to frequent it. We then read in our guide books that this café was one of his regular spots, though not the main one. It was fun to be sitting at a “Joyce café,” drinking the local "apperitif" (a mixture of wine, seltzer, and some bitter orange liquor). We had nice views of the canal and heard a concert from some group that set up on square in front of a church nearby. There’s also a statue of Joyce nearby walking along the bridge over the canal (he’s holding a book). We walked all along the canal and visited an orthodox church there. It's the biggest orthodox church I've seen, very decorated and impressive. We had delicious pizza for dinner that night in a nearby restaurant. We stayed in a pensione near the train and bus stations.

On Sunday we visited Miramar, the estate the Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Josef built for himself just outside Trieste on the sea. We took the bus there before 9 am on a Sunday morning and were surprised to find the bus very crowded. Barbara and I remarked about how odd it seemed for a bus to be so crowded early on a Sunday morning. I said maybe they’re all going to church, and she agreed. She noticed that most of the people on the bus were elderly. I do remember thinking they did not look dressed for church. Anyway, eventually the bus goes along the sea for a few miles and the route ends at Miramar. As we got near the sea, Barbara told me all those people were going to the beach (she’d heard them talking). And sure enough each seaside stop for a mile or more saw numbers of people getting off the bus with their bags of towels and so on for a day on the seashore. From the bus we saw hordes of people already packing the “beaches.” Mostly people were lying out in parks and on concrete walkways along the sea. I’m not sure there is a “beach” per se. I think, rather, that the coast is all rocky like in Croatia. But huge numbers of apparently mostly older people enjoyed spending their Sunday lying out on this “beach.” Barbara and I both found it amusing that we assumed all the old people were going to church when in fact they were going to the beach.

Miramar itself is a lovely estate, like a palace on the sea with huge gardens and wilderness areas. In fact the world wildlife fund has owned the place for over 20 years. The house has been restored so that most rooms have original furnishings and décor. It’s not a huge, huge mansion, like, say, Biltmore in North Carolina (which I think is the biggest house in the U.S. and was built around the same time), but it is quite impressive. The best part, I thought, are all the views of the sea. From there, we made our way back to town and said goodbye before too long, as I had an early bus back to Rijeka (they took the train a few hours later). We left early to get back home in time to see the world cup finals. Of course you know that Italy won. So I was in Italy on the day (though not the hour) when they won the world cup. In fact I was in Italy the last time they won the world cup in 1982. I had just finished a year abroad in France and was traveling through Italy with my mom. It was a lot of fun to be there then because the whole country seemed to pour out into the streets to dance, laugh, run around with flags, and celebrate.