Trieste is an Italian city that I had never heard of before. Trieste is made beautiful by the Adriatic Sea (Gulf of Trieste) and a Venetian-style canal. Trieste is located in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, on the border with Slovenia. Since Trieste is a border city where many cultures have mixed, it has its own special atmosphere and charm.
Inspiring Trieste
Trieste has its own style and retro feel, the houses of the old town remember a hidden and difficult history and the reign of the Habsburgs. The city has raised and fascinated many writers and other intellectuals. The cobblestones have felt the boots of people from many nationalities.
Trieste has enough exciting streets and squares with a historical atmosphere to walk and admire.
The Grand Canal, located in the heart of Borgo Teresiano, is very pretty. The charming Borgo Teresiano is named after the Habsburg Empress Maria Theresa and dates back to her reign in the 18th century. The Austrian Empress is said to have wanted to build a new commercial center in the city. The Grand Canal was designed to allow merchant ships to enter the city center. The Grand Canal is located about halfway between the train station and Piazza Unità d’Italia.
Adriatic Sea and sailboats.
It’s always a great time to spend time in a sunny Italian coastal city in the summer. Join me virtually now and maybe you’ll want to visit the city yourself!
To Italy for morning coffee
My colleagues, or ex-colleagues, know and rejoice that I love going to Italy for morning coffee. It is true that I like to quickly stop by some Italian café, market and shop on some Saturday morning and admire life and beauty, only to return to everyday tasks with new ideas.
A small, strange dream that came true
I had this idea, actually a dream, about how I would go for a morning coffee in Italy, while I was on a trip to Cinque Terre with my friends. Then I imagined what it would be like – just coming to Italy for a while to breathe in the scent of the south, without having to plan this trip far in advance and carry a lot of things with you. Dreams can come true, that’s why I advise you, my dears, to dream boldly – and to dream just such small, slightly strange dreams. It’s great when they come true and make life brighter. I’ve actually lived this dream several times now.
Travel plans and logistics
I’ll explain why I didn’t bring anyone with me right away. Logistics. This time, the logistics were quite difficult, and I wasn’t entirely sure whether I would be able to carry out the plan I had put together. There were a lot of waiting hours between some flights and too few between others. So getting there and back wasn’t 100% certain. Also, the plan was only a short trip with a tiny backpack. What can I do, since I really love doing strange things! I’ll explain later what the logistics turned out to be in reality.
Why did I need to go again?
The Estonian spring-summer weather is designed to be excessively rainy and cold. Everything is being designed to be more and more modern. I believe that farmers and gardeners are happy because they don’t need to water anything or harvest in the fall, everything rots naturally. But all my wool socks tend to wear out. The constant warming of the climate simply melts the holes in them. So I decided to give my feet freedom and go somewhere where I can walk around in beach slippers and have my toes warm for once during the summer.
When everybody started talking about the upcoming long holiday season, I looked at the calendar and, sure enough, it was coming and I hadn’t been invited anywhere. I quickly started to arrange flight times to invite myself somewhere. Arranging flight times is not an easy task; I research the schedules, prices and where it is possible to fly from several airlines. So the idea came up: what if I went to Trieste in Italy via Stockholm, for example.
What are the corridors at Stockholm Airport?
My adventure through Stockholm didn’t go very smoothly because the flight times were too long and since I didn’t want to move into the airport, I had to get a hotel. Early the next morning I was annoyed with myself for thinking of such a plan, and I took the next flight.
I find the corridors at Stockholm Airport too long and ugly. You have to walk for a very long time and look for the right gate, and there are too many terminals. However, I learned that Ryanair flights depart from Terminal 4. When you get to Stockholm Airport, it’s useful to have enough time.
What is Trieste like in the early morning?
The best option to get from Trieste airport to the city is by train, but you can also take the bus. First you have to find this strange tunnel that you have to walk through to the train station. You can buy a ticket from the machine at the train station and then validate it in another machine. During all this train business, I made friends with a Swedish woman who had arrived on the same flight and was now also on her way to Trieste. What makes traveling in Italy so much more fun is that people are happy to guide you, and so we soon found ourselves on the right train, tickets in hand.
Around 9 am in Trieste, it turned out that we both still had time – the Swedish woman had to catch the bus to Piran and I had to check in at my accommodation. The Swedish woman had been recommended a place to eat, so we headed out to find it. Most of the places to eat seemed like places where no one was eating – they just drank something and chatted.
Caffe deli Specchi, where we arrived, had piled some very strange substance on my plate. Ordinary crackers, poured over with ordinary, jarred sauce. To tell the truth, the Swedish woman’s plate had an even greater strangeness. Unknown hard plants that she couldn’t eat. The espresso was very good, however, and the ice cream was also delicious. Don’t invite me back to that place again!
Cafe tables on the street. Sitting in the cafe, you have a good view of the entire Piazza Unità d’Italia.
You can make new friends when you travel!
My new Swedish friend seemed so familiar that it seemed strange why I couldn’t understand her speech at times. We talked in a way that was more comfortable for us – as if we were from the same nationality and city! The topic of travel is a connecting link, which is always a lot to talk about. I translated my Estonian blog story into English because my new friend promised to see what pictures I took. This is how I found readers. Personal contacts.
My new friend traveled on to Slovenia, to the city of Piran, because Trieste was too noisy for her. I could visit her there some day, we’ll see if it works out. I invited her to Tartu to visit me, but since it’s so cold and rainy in Estonia, there’s little hope that anyone will want to come here for the summer.
In the next story I’ll talk more about what you can see in the Trieste area and whether you can go swimming if you come here.
