Trieste, Italy (Trieste, Italia)
Being in Ljubljana meant being tantalisingly close to our beloved Italy. We couldn't see the harm in stopping by for a short visit, so we did our research and set a course for Trieste in the very northeast of the Land of Pizza and Gelato.
Being a seaside city, our first experience of Trieste was of wandering along the waterfront towards the main square. Boats of all shapes and sizes were moored off the coast, and a man in a strikingly orange jacket sketched the wharf.
Turning away from the seaside, we walked next to an inlet which leads to the Piazza dell'Unità d'Italia - the largest square facing onto a waterfront in Italy, and quite picturesque. One of the quaint boats had been neglected and its buoyancy had been watered down somewhat. Get a bilge on there quick!
Fabulous facades lined the area, some with exquisite gold detailing. It was easy to forget your footing as you stumbled onwards staring.
A statue of the writer James Joyce resides here, and he's just the right size that you feel the urge to put your arm around his shoulders. Many writers have spent time in Trieste, but Joyce (who lived here ten years) is particularly popular among Triestians.
Moving more inland, we drank smoothies at a little café where the owner's tiny dog yapped at anything that it didn't like. It fully sank in that I was back in Italy when a moustachioed man came in and greeted the vocal dog with "Ciao, piccola!" Just to let it sink in that much further we stopped by Grom, our favourite gelateria chain, which turned out to only be about fifteen meters down the street from the café! Crema come una volta was on my list, and luckily they were serving it. The flavour is shown in English as "egg cream", but it's fairly indescribable (and delicious) - in Italian it translates to "cream like once upon a time".
The ancient Roman theatre that was only unearthed in 1938 sits juxtaposed right next to several much newer housing developments. Though their ages are worlds apart, their shabbiness is comparable.
An even older relic come una volta was the Roman archway Arco di Riccardo dating from 33BC.
One of the old city gates, it was also integrated with more modern constructions, which made it stand out more than if it was on its lonesome.
The carpark we happened to stow our vehicle at was housed in part of what first appeared to be ruins of a Roman aqueduct, but upon exploration turned out to be an abandoned railway station. Stirrings from inside led us to believe that squatters had descended onto the disintegrating building, and we didn't linger.
Finding our campsite should have been easy, as it was on a main road, and yet Denis' navigation system was determined to lead us up a series of narrower and steeper roads until at times we weren't sure we could continue. I suppose that it may have been more direct in an 'as the crow flies' manner, but with anything bigger than a Vespa we would have been nervous. However, the harrowing ride gave us some spectacular views of the city just as the sun was setting, and we eventually broke through the tiny streets onto the main road so it was totally worth it.
The view from our campsite was excellent as well, though this view is from the entrance and not our actual tent pitch. While in the Netherlands we were often shown where to set up by a staff member on a bicycle, here we were led there by a woman in a zippy Fiat. Once our tents were erected, we drove down to the city (on the proper road this time - I had to navigate us the old fashioned way) for a classic Italian dinner. The best part was when we caught a glimpse of a wild boar as it flashed across the road in front of our car! He had curved little tusks. It was unreal.
Once we found a pizza place that was both open and had an available parking spot that was kinda-not-really nearby, we tucked in to scrumptious marinara pizza. Though marinara is often confused for seafood (possibly because of the similarity to the word 'marine'), a true marinara is a herbed garlicky tomato sauce. The origin story is debated, but one source claims that cooks on Italian ships invented it, as the acidity of the tomatoes meant it could be kept for relatively long periods of time at sea. We also rather bravely tried a pizza with "panna", though it wasn't to our taste - a bland dairy product like slightly sweet cream. The kind waitress was concerned when she saw we hadn't eaten it all and asked us if it was "buono", to which we guiltily assured her it was.
That night as we slept, the biggest thunderstorm of my life rolled in and pummelled our tents with what felt like endless rain. The booming lightening cries woke me up multiple times, but the patter of droplets lulled me back into slumber each time. Unexpectedly, when we arose in the morning it had passed and we were able to disassemble the tents under blue skies. Cleaning the splashes of mud from the sides of our tent wasn't easy, but I'm immensely grateful we didn't have to attempt that in a deluge. The rain did pick up again once we returned to the city, and as such we hid in a gelateria.
It was great. There were so many delicious flavours to decide between. One gelato in particular contained some magical white chocolate, which was exactly like melted white chocolate but was somehow frozen!
Dashing for the carpark in a break, we drove out of the centre just as it started to bucket down again.
This was clearly an unmanageable amount of rain, as gutters weren't taking in water, streets turned into rivers and a couple of sewer grates had popped off and became fountains (thankfully there was no excrement to be seen). We witnessed a driver in front of us slow to a halt as a drenched rat was washed across the road and into the deep gutter. It disappeared and we thought it would be overcome by the water, but then we erupted into cheering when we saw its head break through the surface and it swam to the safety of the curb.
On the outskirts of Trieste, we endeavoured to visit Italy's only extermination camp, which was active from 1943-1945.
Originally a rice husking factory, the name remains the Risiera di San Sabba and stands as a monument to the some five thousand Jews who passed through its doors. After evading a puddle that spanned the width of the street and looked to be more of a small pond, we found the entrance and discovered it to be shut. Walking around the side, we spotted a side door ajar and asked a man inside if the Risiera was still open to the public. He informed us that there had been extensive flooding from the night before, and invited us in to see what appeared to be a square lake encircled by brick factory buildings. Curse you, thunderstorm! We'll just have to return to Trieste one day in order to visit properly. #i'llbeback
Today's post was almost called: Some of my Best Friends are Ice Creams
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