Trieste & Reflections on Italy

I certainly feel that I've travelled a long way from Malta. Out the window of the train to Trieste this morning I could see the Alps! The land here is much greener and more mountainous, and as I look out over the Adriatic sea, the land I see further down the coastline belongs not to any Western European country, but to the Balkans.

Trieste is a real blend of different cultures. While on the surface it's clearly Italian - the language spoken here is Italian, the Italian tricolour flies from flagpoles, people can't have a conversation without energetic use of their hands - if you look a little deeper there are strong Austrian and Slavic influences.

Many of the grandest buildings here would look slightly out of place in Rome, but in Vienna they'd fit in neatly. The food is very Central European. For lunch I ordered a gnocchi dish with sea bass, in which the gnocchi were served as three large dumpling-sized balls. For dinner I ordered a Trieste-style goulash with polenta. While of course it's possible to find pasta and pizza here, all the items on the menu that are labelled as traditional Trieste dishes are much heavier than those further south, and definitely speak to Austro-Hungarian and Slavic roots, sometimes with an Italian twist.

Given the history of this city, it's unsurprising that the building blocks of the culture here are so Austro-Hungarian. This city was Austria-Hungary's primary port until 1918. In the aftermath of the First World War, Austria and Hungary were broken up and large chunks of their territory handed to numerous Allied countries, leaving Italy with Trieste and Austria and Hungary both landlocked. This also broke Trieste's economic supply chains, and the city struggled to remain as relevant to a country with as much coastline as Italy.

Despite this setback, Trieste is a very pleasant city to walk around, with grand, impressive piazzas (or should I say Plätze!) overlooking the sea. It's a fitting location for me to finish my journey through Italy and reflect a little on the country I've spent two weeks travelling through.

Each city I've visited has felt fundamentally quite different. While on the surface they share many characteristics - they all speak Italian, they all have piazzas, streets and monuments named after heroes of the Risorgimento, they almost all have Roman ruins, they all strongly object to the idea of shops and restaurants being open between 3pm and 6pm - each one has felt distinct.

Each one too has felt very proud of their own regions and local traditions, in a way which I believe reflects the smorgasbord of different ruling powers that have governed the various portions of this peninsula. The Italian symbolism feels quite surface-level, but the evident pride in the various regional identities I've seen are evidence of far deeper roots underneath.

Italy is a fantastic country, and I could easily spend far longer here than I have had time to. If I were to come back, I'd love to see some of the more northern cities - Milan and Turin for example - as well as some less urban spots that have been just a little too difficult to get to by train, bus or ferry. I could also have spent so much longer in Rome, despite having visited before and having allocated more time to it than any other city on the trip.

So it's "a presto" to Italy, not "addio". And tomorrow, it's "zdravo" to Slovenia!Leia mais