Built on the rugged hillside above its beautiful port and the dramatic Adriatic coastline, Trieste is famous for it's marvelous seafood and Vienna-like coffeehouses.

But there is much more to enjoy in this marvelous mediterranean city which was once a part of the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburg Empire.

The city has several museums, theatres and places of interest all within easy reach of each other. The food in the area is fantastic with numerous cafes and restaurants offering an abundance of seafood, local cheeses, excellent wines and rich coffees.

>> Guide to Central Trieste

Trieste has many charms and two faces. One is a modern city facing forward, the other, an identity that looks back and preserves the past for the benefit of the increasing tourism trade that now plays a significant part in the local economy. 

Historically and culturally, Trieste is a magical city.

 From its theatrical and musical presentations to the historic cafés with their many gastronomic delights; it can be said that Trieste is truly an international city.Trieste is tucked up in the top corner of Mediterranean sea,  its geographical position once again ideal for the markets of central and southern Europe.

Today, Trieste is a great place to unwind and enjoy yourself with plenty of opportunities for sightseeing and relaxing.

The coast to the west of the city offers a variety of sandy beaches and the rocky shore in the suburb of Barcola is often used by the locals as a place to enjoy the sun. Further inland from Trieste is the Grotta Gigante, which is the largest accessible cave in the world.

 
TOUR OF CURCHES AND RELIGIONS 

Being a melting pot of races and religions, Trieste has inevitably become a centre with many creeds, many religions. In the Borgo Teresiano is the Neobyzantine-styled Serbian Orthodox Chiesa di San Spiridione (San Spiridione's Church), built in 1868 near the impressive and sober Catholic Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Taumaturgo (1840), a Neoclassical hexastyle construction by Pietro Nobile which, in the upper part of its façade, has a balaustrade decorated with statues by Antonio Bosa, from the school of Canova. The Greek Orthodox Chiesa di San Nicolò in Riva The Novembre dates back to the late XVIII century. Though in the Neoclassical style, it is extremely simple outside and wonderfully decorated inside. The Evangelical church of Largo Panfili, built on a design by architect Zimmermann from Elbing about 1874, is in the Neogothic style. Then in Via San Francesco is the Tempio Israelitico (Israelite Temple), finished in 1912. It is based on Syrian patterns and is oriented along the East-West axis, in accordance with the Jewish tradition. It is one of the most important Israelite temples in Europe.

Mediterranean Smoothness

The Rilke's Promenade

Astonishing, and  easily attained views of the coast await. From the piazza ask directions for the coastal road, where before  Duino  there's an entrance through the trees to the Sentiero Rilke, a path named after the early twentieth-century German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who was the best-known walker of this cliff path.

Rainer Maria Rilke's great cycle of ten elegies named after the castle on the Adriatic had its inception, according to Rilke's host at Castle Duino, Maria von Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, on the morning of January 21, 1912. Interrupted by the First World War, the cycle of ten elegies was completed only a decade later.
The two great complementary poem cycles, Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, are not only the result of an extraordinary kind of contact with the unseen world; they are an attempt to understand that world, and to understand it in its holistic relationship to the visible. tangible, world. 

According to National Geographic this is one of the most beautiful Promenades of the world.

Running on the top of a perpendicular shoreless cliff on the sea and reaching the castle of Duino is a meaningful example of the Mediterranean smoothness.
The path has been named after the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote his Elegies to Duino (Duineser Elegien) during his long staying in the castle.A footpath along the white cliffs, "towering against the sea, like foothills of human existence," as the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke put it.

>> WALKS  WITH A VIEW ALONG THE TRIESTINE RIVIERA

THE GIANT GROTTO

At Borgo Grotto Gigante, just below Villa Opicina, there is a huge cavern filled with some amazing ‘organ pipe’ formations and tall columns of stalagmites. These caves are known as Grotto Gigante or Giant Cave and are open every day apart from Mondays. In July and August, the caves Are open seven days a week.

First open to the public on July 5, 1908, it's the largest cave visited by tourists in the world, and it is managed by the oldest speleological association ever (Società Alpina delle Giulie).

 But there is one more record: two geodetic pendulums, measuring 105 metres in lenght, hang from the top, and they are the longest in the world. The vast central space might contain St. Peter's cathedral !!!

Owing to the heighth, falling water drops disintegrate, giving shape to the characteristic 'dish-pile' stalagmites.
A new footroute allowsthe visitor to admire the cave from unexpected and fascinating points of view. In the speleological museum by the cave, rocks and minerals typical of the Carso and its caves are exhibited, as well as animalsand prehistoric objects found in karstic caves, and old and modern speleological equipment.

THE GIANT GROTTO, WINE ROUTES AND KARSTIC PLATEAU

The Mediterranean climate  physically manifests itself through the presence of olive trees for they only grow in areas with hot summers and mild winters. You will notice that the production of olive oil is  important  and for this reason olive groves are numerous. You may even find one in your garden.

  THE ISLAND OF    SUN GRADO

Grado, an island in the middle of a lagoon connected to the mainland by two bridges, has two faces: that of the modern and well-known seaside resort, with its hotels, long avenues full of elegant shops and carefully cleaned and tidy beaches, and the older part, the historic centre with its small houses, century old churches and narrow streets and which immediately remind you of Venice's smaller canals and alleys.

>> GRADO

There are about 4500 shops, 6 department stores and  2 huge  shopping malls in downtown Trieste.

SHOPPING TIME 

The Borgo Teresiano - the grid-pattern, neo-classical city center named after Empress Maria Theresa - is where Trieste's uninspiring shopping opportunities are concentrated. In the Old Town forget about shoes and clothes and concentrate on coffee and second-hand books - two commodities which the city specializes. One which is so famous as to feature on the city council tourist trail is the Libreria Antiquaria Umberto Saba in Via San Nicolas 30. Set up by the city's most famous poet in 1919, it still retains the musty, order-through-chaos atmosphere of a true bibliophile's den. James Joyce lived with wife Nora and two kids in a flat above, though he and Saba never met. 

Even if you haven't got the espresso machine with you, a bag of freshly-ground coffee is a great traveling companion; try the CremCaffè, an old-fashioned torrefazione (coffee roaster) on Piazza Goldoni, where you can also pick up a set of limited edition Illy coffee cups (the design changes every year). The old town, between Piazza Grande and the hill of San Giusto, is dotted with second-hand bookshops. 

During the year, there are numerous Markets and Fairs in the city. On the third Sunday of every month, the cities love for antiques reflected in the coming together of over 60 or so antique shops, jewelers and second-hand dealers offering Art Nouveau and Secession objects and furniture. Take a stroll through the street markets and pick up a few bargains!

Shopping Malls

Dont' miss a visit to The  Giulia (via Giulia) with over 60 shops bars and restaurant , and the Torri d'Europa (via Svevo) with over 120 shops, department stores, boutiques, cinemas and restaurants.

Like Marseilles and Miami, Trieste is not a city to which you go to see much of anything in particular but rather just to be there, to experience the pulse and rhythm of the place.

Department stores and a lot of shops and boutiques are open 7 days a week  generally  9 AM - 21 PM 

DUINO : CASTLES ON THE SEA

 Nearby Attractions

TOURIST ATTRACTIONS IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS

To get to know one of Italy’s most versatile regions, a "small digest of the universe" as the writer Ippolito Nievo defined Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

This varied region is characterized by different landscapes which go from the smooth hills of Collio to the picturesque Trieste coastline, from the middle-European architecture of Trieste to the graceful Venetian architecture of Udine and by different cultures, heritage of various invasions which marked history.

This variety can be savoured also by its rich cuisine together with its world known top white wines and its outstanding red ones.

Water Parks and Zoological Gardens in the Surroundings

Gulliverlandia, Lignano Sabbiadoro:  (17/05/2004 - 21/09/2004)
Gulliverlandia is a 30,000 m² park situated in Lignano Sabbiadoro, near the Aquasplash water park. It offers 16 attractions, modern and ancient miniature monuments and it also has a beautiful aquarium.

Punta Verde Zoo, Lignano Sabbiadoro:  (01/03/2004 - 31/10/2004)
Punta Verde is a privately-run zoological garden with over 70 different species.

Aqualandia Jesolo:  (24/05/2004 - 14/09/2004)
One of Italy's largest waterparks. Numerous swimming pools and water slides. Worlds highest slide (42 metres). Other activities include gym, beach-volley, water fitness, diving lessons, climbing and bungee jumping. Good restaurant area and pizzeria. Children's club.
Afternoon tickets available. Infants smaller than 1 metre get in free. Bus service from local compsites.

Aquasplash Lignano:  (17/05/2004 - 15/09/2004)
Water park with many different slides.

Aquafolie:  (18/05/2004 - 15/09/2004)
Water park.

Tropical Park of Miramare:  www.parcotropicale.it

The only city gate that has stood the test of time.

At the heart of old Trieste between narrow, quiet streets, not far from the very central Piazza Unita , we find the Arco di Riccardo, a monument which , according to many historians, dates back to 33 B.C. and is the only gate of the city walls that has stood the test of time. But there is also another hypothesis: that the monument, 7 metres high and 5 meters long, could in fact be an entrance to a former sanctuary. Historically a little hazy then, it is definitely worth a visit. Next to the Arch, in an enchanting setting, away from the traffic and confusion, there is a delicious restaurant, All'Arco di Riccardo, which offers typically local food, pleasantly served.

  The Castle's Hill 

Upon the hill that dominate Trieste there are San Giusto Castle and San Giusto Cathedral. The Castle was built in 2 centuries,(1470 and 1630). In it is possible to notice the round Venetian bastion (1508-9), the Hoyos-Lalio bastion and the Pomis, or "Bastione fiorito" dated 1630. At present the Castle - in which several rooms, including the Sala Caprin, are open to the public - houses a Museum displaying historical weapons and is regularly used for the staging of exhibitions, events and, in the summer, open-air shows. A walk on the Castle ramparts and bastions gives a complete panorama of the city of Trieste. Next to it there is the Cathedral. His construction started in the 6th, was destroyed in the Lombard invasion. From the 9th to the 11th centuries two basilicas were erected on the ruins of the old church, the first dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption and the second to St. Just (San Giusto).

In the 14th century the 2 basilicas were joined by means of the demolition of one nave of either basilica and the construction of a simple asymmetrical façade, dominated by a delicately-worked Gothic rosette, as ornate as the new bell-tower, using the Romanesque stones found on the site and friezes of arms. 

At the foot of the San Giusto cathedral and castle, on the highest hill of the city, are the remains of a vast, roman basilica dating from the second century. The site was found in the 1930's, when the area was being renovated. The civil basilica had two floors with two apses. Part of the columns were reconstructed during the fascist period. From what remains, it is thought that the basilica was originally 90 metres long and 30 metres wide. It was an imposing building, as Trieste or Tergeste as it was called at the time, was an important city in the Empire. There is a nearby monument to the fallen soldiers of the First World War. From here an extraordinary panorama of the city and the gulf can be admired.

         MIRAMARE

       The Imperial Castle

A Castle for Lovers, a Lovers' Castle

Overlooking the Bay of Grignano, the gorgeous white stone Castello di Miramar graces the seafront just north of Trieste. In spite of it's strategic location, the castle was built purely as a family home and is devoid of defensive capabilities.

The Archduke Maximilian, brother of Franz Josef commissioned the building of this 19th century extravaganza. He married the Princess Charlotte of Belgium and they lived happily here, until Napoleon III of France took Trieste from the Hapsburgs.

Bus 36 ( 0.80 € ) or sea boat line  2.70 €

The day we visited, a group of young school children were being given a tour by one of the docents and the children were delighted with the story of Maximilian and "Carlotta". All went well for the couple as they lived here at Miramar until he was given the title of Emperor of Mexico in 1864 and together they sailed to Mexico.  Unfortunately, his was not a good reign and he faced a firing squad in 1867.  

The castle is preserved in its original condition and reflections of Maximilian's love of the sea are everywhere. His wood paneled bedroom on the first floor was built to resemble the cabin of a ship and a glance from the window of any of the second floor rooms provides a spectacular view over the Bay of Grignano and the Adriatic beyond. His love for exotic places is displayed in the Chinese and Japanese salon. As you stand at the base of the circular staircase, if you look up, there is a glass-bottomed fishpond.  

Sadly, Carlotta returned to live out her days in Brussels; driven insane by the ordeal in Mexico. If the story sounds familiar, it was made into a movie "Juarez" starring Bette Davis.  It appears that Maximillian was a far better botanist than he was an emperor of Mexico! The magnificent park and gardens surrounding the castle were designed by Maximilian before his ill-fated voyage to Mexico.

 Formal gardens organize the outdoor space, and throughout the park's fifty-four acres are plant and tree species collected from every corner of the world—an anxious hoarding by a dying empire.

 As I wandered from room to room, I read a tale of insecure power in the castle's interior-design survey of history: the medieval stone walls, the heavy Baroque and neo-Renaissance furniture. This is Second Empire bombast, persuading itself of its legitimacy, dismissing the elegant restraint of Biedermeier.

Ideal for pleasant strolls, the Parco di Miramar includes a series of delightful walks above the Bay, manicured gardens, pavilions, a greenhouse and several ponds.

 Frequently, special exhibits of flowers, butterflies, and birds are also presented.

There is also an attractive cafe and shop in the upper garden area, which offers a pleasant stop for refreshments and people watching. The cafe is quite inexpensive and has a nice selection of luncheon menu items and a good variety of coffees and beverages. 

The "Monarchs' Salon",  is embellished with portraits of a King of Norway, the Emperor of Brazil, a Czar of Russia – anyone, no matter how fraudulent or despotic, as long as they're nominal monarchs. This softens you up for the bedroom and its images of the most important events in the history of this area, pride of place going to the construction of the castle, of course. Other rooms are paneled and furnished like a ship's quarters, reflecting Maximilian's devotion to the Austrian Navy.

The gardens are open daily in summer from 8 am to 7 pm and in winter from 8 am to 4 pm. 

For the full romantic treatment, in summer you can hear the entire sad story.

A son et lumière called "Miramar's Imperial Dream", performed as a light and sound show (luci e suoni)  at 9:30 and 10:45 pm  is performed beside the sea, with a regular performance in English;  check with the tourist office or the castle   tel 040.224.143   /   040 679 6111   for information on dates and times  for  English performances. 

Entry on concert night is approximately  $ 7 US.  

The Castle  located in a marvelous panoramic position on a rock foreland, is surrounded by a garden in Italian style, rich of rare essences. 

The biological characteristic of the cost, surrounding the foreland may be unique in the Mediterranean sea, it's a Natural Reserve .

There are a number of ways to get to Miramar, of which the simplest is to take the #36 bus from Piazza Oberdan .

Local Trains heading west from Trieste also stop, and in summer (25 April / 15 October)  there's a boat service from the harbor ( 2,70 € ) 

>>  CASTLE AND PARK OF MIRAMARE

While living in Trieste, Joyce wrote most of the stories in Dubliners, turned Stephen Hero into A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and began Ulysses. Echoes and influences of Trieste are rife throughout Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.

  The literary world of Trieste

The mysterious city played home to Joyce, Svevo and other novelists whose spirits live on ...
 Of significant interest is the James Joyce connection. Joyce stayed in Trieste between 1904 and 1915 and between 1919 and 1920.  It was in Trieste that Joyce completed his books, Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. He also wrote a short prose poem called Giacomo Joyce, a play, Exiles, and began his masterpiece, Ulysses. There are some 36-places of interest in Trieste of interest to Joyce fans. The city was also the birthplace and home to Ettore Schmitz, who wrote under the pen name of Italo Svevo, and Sigmund Freud.  

Trieste was  Joyce's first semi-permanent residence in Europe, and he lived here with Nora Barnacle for a number of years in the early part of the century. He arrived in 1904, and stayed until 1915, when the Great War got too close for comfort, and he and his family were forced to flee to Switzerland.

Joyce taught English at Trieste's Berlioz School, and even became briefly involved in an attempt to launch a cinema. There are several plaques to him about the town, as well as a statue.

Joyce remained very fond of the city for the rest of his life, though he never revisited it. Looking at it from a distance, it's easy to see why.

Backed by a white limestone plateau and facing out into the blue Adriatic, Trieste has an absolutely idyllic setting.

Strangely enough, though, the more you see of the place, the more charming that  quality becomes. 

Probably the best James Joyce pilgrimage site is the Café San Marco , where bookshelves are lined with the works of the joint's onetime regulars, including Joyce, Magris, Italo Svevo, and Umberto Saba. Joyce lived in the city in "voluntary exile" (the poetic kind) for much of the twentieth century's first three decades, writing most of the stories in Dubliners, all of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and major sections of Ulysses here. Joyce loved Trieste and its contradictions, its sensuality and its indeterminism; it is a city he well imagined, his sense of exile blurry with myopia, the city itself stereoscoped through his spectacles.    Italo Svevo, although neglected until the last few years of his life, is now acknowledged as a writer of international stature alongside his contemporaries Kafka, Proust and Joyce. These essays focus on his three novels, Una Vita, Senilitá and La coscienza di Zeno.
Drawing on new biographical and critical research, key issues are explored such as Svevo's Jewishness; his debt to psychoanalysis; sexuality and love; structure and irony; and time and narration. The opening chapter is devoted to Trieste, which features so prominently in his oeuvre.

You can also retrace the footsteps of his novelist friend Italo Svevo, born in the city in 1861 and who died here in 1928, a man who charted the sexual passions that lurked behind the facade of this only too bourgeois city.

British writers have had their love affair with the city, too - after all, it was to Trieste that Sir Richard Burton, most dangerous of all 19th-century diplomats, whose sexual writing had scandalised Victorian England, was dispatched as consul in 1872.

The translator of an unexpurgated version of The Arabian Knights, Burton died here in 1890. His wife burned the two volumes of his translation of The Scented Garden in an effort to protect his memory.

Sigmund Freud, who also lived here, would have understood - as might Lord Lucan, who is said to have worked in the city's aquarium after his disappearance in 1974.

But on a lighter note, composer Joseph Haydn named a symphony after the city, novelist Joseph Conrad wrote admiringly about its dockers and Thomas Mann wrote part of Buddenbrooks at the Hotel de Ville.

LITERARY ROUTES OF TRIESTE

THE 41 MUSEUMS OF TRIESTE

et another attractive aspect of Trieste is that you never feel the guilt-inducing pressure of a long list of art sites you think you should probably visit. Most of the 40 city's museums, in former private houses, still retain their original furnishings and architectural details, which are generally more interesting than the art -- the result of the somewhat spotty collecting tastes of the city's princes of commerce and finance. The Museo Revoltella, in particular, is a kind of wonderland of 19th-century kitsch, displaying paintings with titles like "Listening to Beethoven" and "After the First Communion."

 Trieste offers a huge number of galleries, museums, attractions and sites. If you are interested in art, geological, botanical, mineralogical and historical collections, Trieste offers all. Popular excursions include the Museum del Mare, a museum of the sea, Miramar Castle and Miramar Park with a variety of European trees and plants, Californian sequoias and cypresses and cedars from Lebanon. Miramar Marine Nature Reserve is  maintaining the biological and hydrological conditions to preserve the environment, to continue research and to please you!

  GUIDE TO THE 41 MUSEUMS OF TRIESTE

UNESCO WORLD'S HERITAGE  ROMAN RUINS AND BASILIQUE

AQUILEIA

In case you are eager to see another major wonder of the world of art,  in the triangle of short drives from Trieste -- you can proceed to Aquileia.

Once the fourth-most-important city of the Roman Empire, a regional capital of about 100,000, Aquileia never quite regained its prominence after being sacked by Attila, and gradually dwindled into a small provincial town. It has an amazing archaeological museum, and there is a walk you can take along the Via Sacra, once the principal street of Aquileia's important river-port system and now an astonishingly beautiful lane lined with cypresses, lush lawns, a canal and archaeological fragments.

 The floors of private Roman houses remain in a field near the Via Sacra and across the main road; these well-preserved mosaics depict animals and geometric forms that give you a sense of the domestic architecture and of the layout of a neighborhood in ancient Rome.

Any of this would be enough to merit a trip to Aquileia, even if it weren't for its real eye-popper: the patriarchal basilica, founded in the fourth century and worked on for almost a millennium, with a floor the size of a soccer field and a fourth-century pavement, more than 800 square yards, completely covered with a prodigious mosaic portraying writhing animals, faces, birds, a fight between a rooster and a turtle, a detailed and animate fishing scene. These images out of some paleo-Christian Looney Tunes assume the additional weight of being early Christian symbols. There are two crypts, one painted with 12th-century frescoes of the life of St. Hermagoras, a martyr and an early bishop of Aquileia, and another in which you can see, through a plexiglass floor, more recent excavations exposing yet more mosaics.

THE ROMAN FORUM AND BASILICA OF AQUILEIA

A CABLE TRAMWAY WITH A VIEW

This old rail system was opened in 1902 and has become part of local folklore, there are even local traditional songs about it. The tram is managed by a transport business consortium and costs them millions  every year. It leaves from the city centre's Piazza Oberdan and travels the 5 kilometres up the Scorcola to the town of Obicina. It is far more than just a means of transport however, it is a large tourist attraction and represents an important part of the city's  history as well as being part of the heart and soul of the city.

The route that it follows is extraordinary, passengers sit on the wooden seats and benches you feel as if you are on an old fashioned merry go round. There is a fantastic view from the windows: you can see Trieste, the bay and Miramare castle.

A normal bus ticket  is all that you need to buy in order to use the tram. There are departures every 20 minutes  (from 7.11am until 8.11pm)

The most picturesque way up into the Carso is to take the tranvia (cable tramway; 7.30am–8pm; every 20min; 

0.85 € from Trieste's Piazza Oberdan to the village of Opicina  438 mts above sea level, at the edge of the plateau.

The Opicina Tramway opened in1902, leaves the city behind as it winds through the steep hills. This one of a kind funicular system is an ideal way to spend an afternoon. The service is currently used to get the working people who live on the numerous points on the hillside to and back from the city below, however, popular with visitors alike. 

 At the terminus, a journey of around 25-minutes, get off and take lunch in one of the restaurants and cafes. Step off on the way up (or way down) and visit the various sites on the hills. The tram departs every 20-minutes . There are a number of historical trains in Trieste and on the Carso. In Trieste, there is a Railway Museum in the old station of St.Andrea.

Boat Services  in the Gulf of Trieste