The city of Trieste

Trieste, what to know

Trieste is a charming town between mountain and sea, near the border with Slovenia. Trieste is visited every year by quality tourism and offers lots of attractions and cultural life. It is a great pleasure to sit on the terrace of a cafè, drinking a prosecco and talking Italian in front of the sea.

The town is also well-know for:

• Joyce, Rilke, Svevo, Saba, Magris, Heinichen
• historical Cafè
• sea and beaches
• walking trucks in the nature of Carso
• Miramare castle
• contemporary art
• sailing boats
• sinagogues and orthodoxe churches
• science
• wine and food

Trieste is historically and culturally an international city, for the lovers of theatre and music it others a rich programme throughout the year. The events that make worth coming to Trieste are many and we choose just a few as an example. The climax of these colourful festival are processions where bands and thousands of people in costumes parade with allegorical floats.
Svevo e Joyce: Trieste can still be explored through Svevo's locations. It is a city that has preserved its historical spaces, it is the city of Zeno, Emilio, Alfonso and Aligiolina and the other characters of Trieste's literature. We can still imagine them in our company as we enter a café or a theatre, wandering through the streets and squares, venturing into the Carso plateau or putting to sea. The Caffé San Marco, the Teatro Verdi, the Molo Audace and the Biblioteca Civica still speak to us those times. These are our own times, which still belong to Svevo, who tried "to search" at the borders of three civilisations, of three cultures, between East and West, between sea and rock.
Visit the many museums of ancient and modern art and the aquarium where you can see marine fauna from all over the world.
Take a walk between the sea and the sky along the Rilkes' trak, run in the marathon, along the breath-taking, panoramic road between Monfalcone and Trieste, visit the Carsiana botanical gardens, the Gigant Cave, the largest natural cavity in the world, or have something to eat in a typical "osmiza" on the Karst.
Sport and sea, The "Barcolana" is the event of summer, the biggest international regatta in the Mediterranean in which nearly 2000 boats take part. And, for visitors who prefer the mainland, the Karst is decked in her splendid colours.
Discover Trieste through a wide variety of events. In November, for example, there is the most important Antique Fair in the region at the Maritime Terminal; the streets abound with markets and there is a rich calendar of religious events, the churches are alive with music, from the splendid Synagogue to the "golden" Serb Orthodox church, from the NeoGothic Evangelical church to the Basilica of San Giusto.

Gastronomy

The plentiful "souls" of Trieste influence the every day life with the habits of the numerous populations which inhabited it during the centuries and which are still alive: the dishes proposed in the city "buffets", the typical restaurants of Middle-European origins, is an experienced and flavored mixture of the Austrian and Slavik tradition. The snacks are based on pork meat, boiled in the typical pot called "caldaia" and many varieties of ham, sausages, often served with sauerkrauts and cran sauce, paprika or cumin. As a first course we suggest "jota", a soup prepared with the pork skin, potatoes, beans and cappucci agri or the goulash, tripe or sguazeto, or veal stew. Among the typical dishes you will also find the gnocchi of bread and ham, stuffed with plums or jam.
Dishes and wines
Among the most typical ones there are: the "brodetto" (fish soup), risotto, the "sardoni in savor", (flavored pilchards) and typical of the interland are the salads (chicory and rocket), the "bruscandoli" and last but not least wines to alternate with beer. The DOC local wine is Terrano, red and thick: in order to make it popular, in 1986 the Terrano Wine Path connecting Opicina to Visogliano was opened. In the restaurants of the province you can taste other DOC wines of the Carso: the Rosso, Malvasia, and the white Vitovska Garganja.

The pastry shops

The pastry shops in Trieste offer delicious local varieties of the most famous Austrian cakes: Sacher cake, krapfen, "strucolo cotto" and "strucolo de pomi" (local varieties of local kinds of "strudel"), "chiffeletti" (typical cookies made with flour, eggs and potatoes and fried in oil). During Easter you can taste the "pinza", a sweet leavened bread that many women still prepare at home and take to the bakery to be cooked. Other variants are: the "titola", that is decorated with a hard egg, the "putizza" and "presnitz". "Fritole", pancakes stuffed and fried in oil and fave, small round cookies made with almonds and aromas are typical during Carnival.

Cafés

Let's not forget the Trieste of Joyce, Svevo, and Saba, the crowded narbour pervaded by voices and exotic flavours, wonderful cafés considered by the citizens of Trieste as places where it is possible to discuss, work, write, read and study. Some historical cafés still well-known and popular, have been recently brought back to their ancient beauty. Today the Historic Cafès of Trieste, are the ideal venues for debates and other cultural events and places for spending solitary or social hours immersed in a warm, quiet and elegant atmosphere of past times.