Trieste Facts

Trieste is the capital of the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia and has 260,000 inhabitants. It is situated on the crossroads of several commercial and cultural flows: German middle Europe to the north, Slavic masses and the Balkans to the east, Italy and then Latin countries to the west and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Its artistic and cultural heritage is linked to its singular "border town" location.

You can find some old Roman architecture (a small theater near the sea, a nice arch into old city and an interesting Roman museum), Austrian empire architecture across the city centre (similar to stuff you can find in Vienna) and a nice atmosphere of metissage of Mediterranean...

...is the smallest province in Italy, and perhaps also the most isolated. For evidence of this, simply take a look at any map: it consists of a thin stretch of land which runs between the sea and the upland plains which border Slovenia. This border area is fraught with tensions, as the city has not yet learned to co-exist peacefully with its foreign neighbors.

Surrounding the highly urbanized areas in the center and the south, stands a veritable constellation of small towns and villages such as Sgonico, Monrupino, Duino, Basovizza and San Pelagio which are predominantly inhabited by the Slovenian-speaking minority. In recent years, these areas have witnessed the construction of a number of country...

...faces west, toward the rest of Italy, to which it is connected only by a strip of what would otherwise be Slovenian beachfront just a few miles wide. For many of its traditions -- from the Slavic dialects you are likely to hear in the streets to the appearance of goulash and Viennese pastries on its menus -- this handsome city of medieval, neoclassical, and modern buildings turns to other parts of Europe and is rightly considered a Habsburgian Adriatic port, tied more to Vienna than to Venice.

Already a thriving port by the time it was absorbed into the Roman Empire in the 2nd century A.D., Trieste competed with Venice for control of the seas from the 9th through the 15th centuries. For several...