Top of the World
Trieste, overlooking the gulf of the same name in the northernmost part of the Upper Adriatic, lies between the Italian and Istrian peninsula, a few kilometres from the Slovenian border in the historic region of Venezia Giulia. Beautiful and cultured, Trieste is the most cosmopolitan city in Italy. You can breathe in the glorious Habsburg past that made it "the little Vienna by the sea" and in the crossroads of languages, peoples and religions that still characterize it, you can easily understand its Central European and Mediterranean soul.
Heart of the city is the most beautiful and the most symbolic of its squares, today dedicated to the Unification of Italy. The buildings that overlook it are a perfect synthesis of Trieste's history. The most spectacular side of the square, however, is the one facing the sea, on which the Molo Audace stretches for over two hundred metres. From here, the view goes beyond Piazza Unità and opens onto monumental buildings, the Greek Orthodox Church of San Nicolò, on the Grand Canal, the centre of what was once the village commissioned by Maria Theresa of Austria and which, with its churches, bears witness to the happy coexistence of different religions. In the distance, you can see the white outline of Miramare, the romantic castle of Maximilian and Charlotte of Habsburg.
Trieste is also the city of coffee. Free port for the import of coffee since the eighteenth century, the port of Trieste is still the most important in the Mediterranean for its traffic. But coffee in Trieste also rhymes with literature: there are numerous and beautiful literary cafés, historic places with retro charm once frequented by great authors such as James Joyce, Italo Svevo, Umberto Saba and still much loved by writers and intellectuals. Taking a break in one of Trieste's historic cafés is a real ritual not to be missed, for which you must also learn a special jargon: here the espresso is called "black", but what will the "gocciato" or "capo in b" be? Discovering it will be a pleasure!
