I am back in Italy! When I got out of the basement hostel in Ljubljana I heard the sound of water on the street. Oh, no! Yes, it had rained during the night, but at least for now the clouds were holding, and when I arrived in Trieste, Italy, the sky was overcast but not menacing. Let's see how long my good luck holds.
A short 20 minutes walk brought me to my residence, in a swanky building four blocks from the waterfront. I had to wait for 20 minutes until the cleaning lady arrived, and I was able to unload my backpack and go explore the town. It is a handsome city, apparently designed by Franz Josef himself, with many squares, monumental buildings, and lots and lots of classic statues. As I walked through the streets, I was able to add to my scant knowledge of the history of the area. Trieste spreads along the horns of the most beautiful bay, a fact that was of great interest to the Romans, who first developed the town as Tergeste and made it one of their main ports in the Adriatic. There are columns and half arches everywhere, as well as a handsome Roman theater in very good state of preservation. Then the Romans lost the province to the Ottomans, it went back to the hands of Byzantium for a short while, was engulfed by the Serene Republic in the Middle Ages, and eventually came to be part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, together with Slovenia and its playmates. Think about it; Austria and Hungary are land-locked, so Trieste became their main port, and hence the attention that it got from Franz-Josef and his wife Sissi, who apparently were regular visitors to this beautiful resort. To the west, the troublesome Kingdom of Italy had its eye on this Vienna of the Adriatic, but good luck grabbing it from Austria and Hungary.
And here a minor character enters into the story: Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian of Hapsburg, who as the reagent of the province had built a charming castle, Miramare, on the west side of the bay, to serve as home to him and his charming wife Charlotte. Max was the brother of Franz-Josef, and made it very clear that he was aspiring to the Imperial throne. What to do with the troublesome fellow? Enter Franz's good buddy, Napoleon III, who came up with the hair-brained idea that they could pack Max to Mexico, to become the emperor of that far away land, and thus take him out of the picture. So Franz and Nap talked clueless Max to take the bait (and give up his aspirations to the Austrian throne) offering all possible economic and military help (of which he saw very little in the five years that followed), and Maximiliano y Carlota, emperor and empress of Mexico left their beautiful Miramare, only to face a relentless opposition war from Juarez and his generals (starting with the defeat of the French army in Puebla, on the Cinco de Mayo de 1862). Poor Max never got to see Miramare again, arrived to Mexico in the middle of turmoil in 1864, and was executed by firing squad on June 19, 1867. Carlota fared no better; in 1866, at age 26, she returned to Europe to seek support for her embattled husband, got refusals everywhere, lost her marbles, and was confined in different mental institutions until her death in 1927, at age 86.
Back in Trieste, which was apparently very happy to belong to the Austrian-Hungarian empire, after World War I the unthinkable happened, and Trieste and Slovenia were attached to the much hated Kingdom of Italy as war reparation. Italy lost no time colonizing the regions in the 20 years that followed, but then the Nazis came and took Trieste and Slovenia for themselves, only keeping out of Venezia because Benito Mussolini and Hitler were "friends". Then World War II happens, and Trieste and its surrounding region goes to Italy, but Slovenia goes to the Soviet Union. Here you might remember that Slovenia still feels that Trieste belongs to them; in contrast, the Italians still talk of the "exodus" when Italians had to abandon their farms, houses, and shops in Slovenia when the Soviet Union took over. Clearly there are more than two sides to every story.
I completed my tour of Trieste by taking the tourist bus, looking at all the beautiful Austrian buildings, following the curve of the bay to the north past the seashore Forest of Barcola (apparently the place to come swim during the hot days of summer) and all the way to Miramare. We also visited the top of the hill where the Venetian fort of Saint Giusto overlooked and protected the port, and where the medieval Cathedral of Saint Giusto was built using as wings two existing Byzantine chapels (which no doubt accounts for it asymmetry). I later walked up the hill and was impressed by the austerity of the exterior, and by the quiet beauty of the interior.
Nice place, Trieste.
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