Trieste: Italy's Mediterranean crossroads of history, food and natural beauty

Irish Examiner

3 days ago

Summiting a medieval hillscape overlooking Trieste city centre, St Justus Cathedral is a composite of clashing centuries mashed together, like Italy itself, to present as a coherent whole.
It was originally two separate churches dating back to the sixth century, only the 14th century witnessed their merger into this unlikeliest of cathedral outfits.
Listen carefully and you can almost hear each side of the cathedral bicker over who has the apse ass and who has the altar of this venerable two-man horse costume.
Clocking less than 200,000 inhabitants in this most liveable of Italian cities, Trieste's wider geography is a curiosity.
The city is stretched along a thin, ill-fitting hook of land cuddling the top corner of the Adriatic in the fanciful hope of insulating itself from the Bora gusts, which can belch 150km/h katabatic winds from the northeast.
While there is the somewhat tiresome and overplayed Irish connection with James Joyce and Trieste, it was the celebrated Welsh travel writer Jan Morris who put this loveable pup on the map for me.
The Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Monrupino is a hidden gem in the Karst region
Her Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere is an understated homage to understanding why, of all the places she could have called home, she chose here.
While undeniably scenic, there are patently more esteemed cities or exquisite locales not just across Italy but on the Adriatic alone (hello, Venice!).
Key to it was Trieste being for centuries a largely tolerant, peaceful, multi-faith knot of identities, an open-minded nexus anchored along this habitable strip the Alps from the Adriatic, through which a traditional trading route between east and west Europe was honed over millennia.
Croatia can be reached in a half-hour by car, as can the Italian Alps, while Slovenia is hardly 10 minutes.
Arc up to the modest ridgeline above the city's outposts and you enter the placid otherworld of the dry karst plateau. It is a land of many gears, all appealingly low.
Yet this Italian city only became Italian in a trade-off following the First World War. Up until the early 1300s, the Triestini spent most of their fragile existence being raided, raped and plundered by the Venetians.
This led them to seek protection from the neighbouring Austrians, under which they became nominally Austrian for the following 600 years, with Trieste becoming the main port in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
While, further inland, the steps and coiling alleys play snakes and ladders up and down the old city, there remains a marked 19th-century Austrian imprint upon the flat quayside city centre.
It flexes an imperial order, a royal rectitude of sorts, displayed in its mannerly grid system and sequenced squares.
No surprises then that Triestini are, dare I say, less demonstrably Italian: The volume, vanity, and delight in theatrical chaos are dialled down to meld with the earthy mellowness of the Slovenes, the calm pragmatism of the Austrians. And I like it.
Cycling along the Napoleonic Way in Trieste
PRIM AND PROPER
But how best to do Trieste, when it's so clearly a place to be? Refreshingly, it's not a city of tick-the-box 'sights,' meaning there's an even, uncluttered flow to the streets and squares, with locals and tourists mingling seamlessly.
So, after a wander up to Trieste Cathedral, peruse the city's main central square, the spacious Piazza dell' Unità d'Italia, or try book some opera/ballet at Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi, all comfortably covered in a day.
But get out the following morning on the timeworn half-tram, half-funicular to Opicina, a small satellite in the hills overlooking Trieste, and stroll the lovely 4km descent along the Napoleonic way.
Dating back to the early 1800s, today it's a de facto greenway, peaceful and of gentle incline, carved through aromatic pine woodlands opening out to stunning views across the Gulf of Trieste.
Stroll complete, we spend the rest of our Sunday morning leisurely rock climbing — plenty of chat, craic, and giggles, and with no experience necessary — the limestone cliff face above the trail, thanks to our superb guide, Alberto of Outdoor Lab, €80.
The gardens of Miramare Castle, Italy
Also along the coast, 7km north of Trieste city centre is the gilded showpiece of Miramare Castle and its attendant 22-hectare public park.
It was all a late-1850s status statement by the nice-but-dim Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Habsburg, and his trophy wife, Charlotte of Belgium.
They only lived there for four years before Maximilian was induced by Napoleon III to take up the puppet post of Emperor of Mexico in 1864, despite having zero connection to that country or its people.
More attentive to the cultivation of his new garden than the pitiful plight of his newfound subjects, not surprisingly Max was executed within three years, with Charlotte slipping in to insanity soon after.
A most gorgeous 19th century white elephant, their lonesome castle has projected, prim and proper, into the north Adriatic ever since.
The city behind me, I journey up on to the Karst plateau, sieved across southwestern Slovenia and north-eastern Italy, all reachable within a half hour of Trieste.
As plateaus go, it's hardly Tibet. At a mere 300m altitude, it scarcely scrapes 400sq km and 20,000 inhabitants.
Journey between the petite, time-frozen villages and, as the days go by, you may ask yourself — to misappropriate Talking Heads — am I in Italy or Slovenia?
The answer? It simply doesn't matter, thanks to the EU. And, as with that Talking Heads hit, Once in a Lifetime, there really is water flowing underground.
Being porous limestone, streams and rivers flow so far underground that all the village wells sink for fathoms on end but for a pail of water.
We are entering a land where, since 1900, three generations of the one family have been born in the same house without ever moving out, yet still managed to have lived in three different states: Austro-Hungarian Empire; Yugoslavia; Slovenia.
Borders, my friend? Borders come and go.
Art gallery in Stanjel, Slovenia
DREAMLIKE
It is a miniaturised landscape, parcelled between miniature, stonewalled fields separating miniature low woodlands.
Tiny villages fizzle out in tight strips of orchard and the odd paddock of pigs.
It's a landscape where open soils sit below pollarded black mulberry trees, where gable ends of 17th-century cottages catch the setting sun. Where deep dolines (natural karst depressions) and more than 200 caves scour the terrain. A place that has me instantly at ease.
Upon low hills sit medieval fortress churches, remodelled with 8m-high outer tabors, huge walls, to defend their wares from the Ottomans.
Stanjel is one such, an exquisite, intact village just over the border.
These days it's the home of restaurants, boutique craft stores and galleries, of afternoons sipping and tasting.
Outside Karst House in Stanjel, Slovenia
Stanjel Castle Museum tour (€10) is highly recommended, while its attendant wine shop is worth a gawk.
But first book a two-hour guided tour of the village (€19), where you'll discover the aged Karst House, the intricate Ferrari Garden, and wine-tasting at Grad Stanjel.
This area is arguably too well known for the Lipica Stud Farm.
Horses at Lipica stud Farm, Slovenia
Founded in 1576, it seems to be a parade of My Little Ponies, but I admit I only have momentary look over a fence.
Endless spin-off equestrian activities/attractions have built up all around these pasty nags.
While it may be a novelty for most Europeans, based on the coachloads in the outstretched car park, it's not so when you're coming from Ireland.
UNESCO-listed Škocjan Caves
Spend your time in the Unesco-listed Skocjan Caves instead (€16 - €24), which claim to be the oldest touristed caves in the world, with guided tours starting in 1633.
Though I tend to loathe most caves, these massive dreamlike passages have me in awe.
Stretching out over 6km, of which almost 3km is now walkable, they're so atmospherically lit that the imagination goes to town on the Tolkien-esque stalactites and stalagmites, as you traverse elevated steel walkways and suspended bridges, the echo of the Reka River lifting far beneath you.
Finish off your short break with a gentle hike along the 7km-long section of Stage 36 of the Alpe Adria Trail, from Mihele in Slovenia, downhill to the small town of Bagnoli in Italy.
On balance, you'd struggle to find more diversity over a leisurely two-hour rural walk almost anywhere else in Europe than on this cycle and pedestrian path following the former single-line railway through the Glinscica Valley.
Rosandra Valley crosses the Karst plateau in in the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia
Jamie was a guest of:
ESCAPE NOTES
Getting there
Ryanair fly Dublin-Trieste twice a week from approx. €40 each way (airport is 37km to Trieste).
Alternatively, Dublin-Marco Polo Airport (near Venice) has 12 direct service each week, from approx. €40 each way, though it is another 150km on to Trieste.
Owing to the scattered, largely rural attractions across the Karst plateau, a hire car is highly recommended.
Hotel Maestoso
Where to stay
In Trieste, go and spoil yourself at the exquisite, early-20th Century Hotel Savoia Excelsior Palace collezione.
It's located within a prime city centre block, with views out over the Gulf of Trieste. Classic doubles from €254.
On the Karst, I stayed in Hotel Maestoso, at Lipica.
While it's very reasonably priced (from €129 per double room), its sheer scale and adjacent garish casino didn't reflect or respect the more intimate, old world village life of the plateau. So, consider casting your net wider.
Biohotel St Daniel
Where to eat
In Trieste, dine at:
Near Miramare/Napoleonic Way, dine at Trattoria Sociale di Gabrovizza or Trattoria Valeria Opicina.
On the Karst, dine at Bistro Grad Štanjel (in Štanjel village) and Bio Hotel St. Daniel.