It’s the middle of a July European heatwave in Trieste, Italy. Today it’s been probably 35c in the sunshine, so any shade is most welcome. By early evening and in the shade of an inner city park, the heat is not too awful and we head with our two London grandkids to the only kids playground we can find. The shade of the big old plane trees is perfect and the grandkids make the most of a pretty average play area. Subsequently we will find some better ones up the coast.
On the way back from the playground granddaughter Amelie said, “Poppa, why are the buildings looking like this?” as she patted the decorated stonework on the building we are passing. So I pointed out the beautiful door in front of us and the stonework work decorations that had been created centuries back by master craftsmen. After a few moments thought to consider the history and beauty of the architecture she said, “what’s for tea Poppa?” So we headed back to the air conditioned apartment with her brother and Nanna Sue for fresh filled mushroom / spinach & ricotta pasta shells, tomato and ragu sauce supper, with Vienetta ice cream to finish with fresh fruit as a treat!!
This is our first time to this area of Italy, and usually in a “new to us city”, we would get out and explore, but grandparent duties, the heat- which is overpowering – and time frames, a 5 night stay, are against us. So its grab what views and snatches of info we can in our few days in Trieste.
Day 1– Thursday– We have flown into Trieste from London Stansted, an easy 2 hour flight. The airport and the city it serves are in the Gulf of Trieste which lies at the top end of the Adriatic Sea and just to the east of Venice. An ancient city and key port location, the first thing that strikes us about the city is that it is very clean, with buildings in good order. Modern buses – some with aircon, a small but very modern airport and excellent train service connecting the airport to the city -8 minutes walk airport to train and 30 mins to the city centre. Google Maps was excellent for sorting our transportation options and timings during our stay.
Our apartment is spacious with 3 big double bedrooms, sourced via Booking.Com, it’s on the 3rd Floor but is advertised with a lift, “ascensore”!! And yes there is a lift, but it doesn’t work, so 3 floors means 6 flights of stairs – up and down!! The apartment is well airconditioned, except we find the units expel intermittent noises, the grandkids christen as “farts”, and when the maintenance crew turn up to investigate, its “all a mystery”, and we are told we have the temperature set too low at 22c. There is a law in Italy that the minimum aircon temperature setting must be no less than 26c – hmmm!!
Day 2 – Friday – dawns, its stinking hot, and we decide we can all manage the 1km walk from the apartment to the Municipal Beach swimming area for a dip in the sea and then adjacent to that an Italian Delicatessen / eatery/ cafe/restaurant – EATALY – is the next stop for provisions for lunch. The Municipal Beach is extraordinary. Took just the one photo, not wishing to intrude upon peoples privacy. There is an entrance for Women and one for Men – children can go to either. A white solid wall then separates the two gender sections of a pebble beach and continues down into the water, where the separation continues via a rope and small buoys to keep the two genders apart. On the Male side there are plenty of sun worshipers but there are also quite a number of disabled people, both male and female with carers who are assisting them into the water to swim, or just splash and have fun. All in all it’s rather interesting.Family swim over, we head for the apartment, air conditioning and lunch.
Across the road from our apartment is the port area, two cruise ships a day dock and disgorge their eager passengers. The building immediately across from us was the original fish market, today it is used for exhibitions and whilst we were there, a Maserati Car Photo Shoot. The main road running parallel to the port , which we need to cross, consists of a two lane dual carriageway in the middle, and then on either side of that two one lane parallel side roads flowing contra to the dual carriageway in the middle. To cross the roads we must wait for the “green man”, what we do not immediately realise is that the dual carriageway “green man” does not link up with the side road “green man”, and danger for unwary tourists whose brains are tuned to driving on the left ensues!
Day 3 – Saturday– its time to try to find a beach. Two buses, an hours travel and then a walk brings us to a beach complex north of the city. It’s not a “beach” as we Kiwis understand with long stretches of soft sand, this has long stretches of concrete, big stone breakwaters and some pebbly areas. Sea access is either over pebbles or over a breakwater on a metal access ladder much as one might find in a swimming pool. It’s very busy , everyone does get a swim but it’s a major logistics exercise. In the afternoon trying to find a bus becomes a nightmare at the beach, so a taxi is summoned and at a cost, the return to the city apartment is sorted. Takeaway Italian pasta follows and we all sleep well, in spite of the “farting air conditioners “!
Day 4 – Sunday – we are determined to find a better, closer sea swimming location so after two bus rides north and 30 minutes or so, we do. An extensive tree lined shady area, a whole stretch of big stone breakwaters, kids play areas, access into the sea via ladders and it seems the rest of Trieste are there too!! We find a spare patch of shady pine needles, a friendly lady who comes from Staffordshire but is actually Italian, is a great help. She is lying next to us on a large rectangular lump of stone that could easily be a gravestone in another context. I am invited to share the “gravestone” and her life story over the next few hours, with regular forays to take our grandchildren to the play areas, a bite of takeaway lunch and even a swim in the rather warm Adriatic which is not terribly refreshing.
Just off the port there is an amazing 3 Masted Vessel, lying at anchor. Investigation identifies it as “Yacht A”, built for a Russian Oligarch at a cost of $US600m, its been impounded by the EU as part of their economic sanctions against Russia and Oligarchs over the Ukraine War.
This time the bus journeys back to the apartment are much better. The city buses have simple “tap on – credit card or phone” facilities and fares are not expensive.
Sunday evening, a quiet meal , outside at an Italian/ Austrian/ Hungarian style restaurant, a sunset out across the harbour and an early Day 5 – Monday morning an 07.15 early start for our London family travellers, heading to Portugal. We leave the cool apartment mid morning, its very quiet with the grandkids gone. Trieste definitely has much more to offer than we found. But we had fun even with the limited exploring we did. The time spent with the grandkids, “ what’s the time Mr Wolf”, reading countless books, playing hide and seek, helping Poppa Pete learn German – just priceless.
Travels with My Wife 