The reason for staying in Sistiana was to visit Trieste and
the regular buses took just 30 minutes to get into the centre of the city. The
ride took us all along the coast although the view of the sea was mostly
blocked by trees. The bus station was next to the train station and was in the
old commercial port area and empty warehouses indicated how active the port
used to be. We walked the short distance to the centre of the city, the Piazza Unita
d’Italia, and found an enormous cruise ship moored. These cruise ships have now
been banned from Venice (hooray! and about time), so many now stop in Trieste
and take their passengers to Venice by coach.
We visited the tourist information centre and were told that a guided tour was
about to start, so we used our FVG cards to book a place, starting our one week
of use. The lady who took the tour was very pleasant and spoke excellent
English however, there were only four of us who needed the English translation
and this meant that the English commentary was very brief compared to the
Italian version and she had a habit of repeating herself. She covered Piazza
Unita and Piazza della Borsa before heading up the hill to the location of the
original city in Roman and pre-Roman times. Here there is a castle, the
Cathedral di San Giusto and the Roman forum. Our guide told us about the church
before we went in but when we came to leave, it was pouring with rain. It was a
day not of sunshine and showers but occasional sunshine and massive downpours.
At this point, the group split up as the weather was not conducive to wandering
through the streets listening to the guide. We decided to wait for the rain to
stop and we then walked less than 100 metres to the Roman forum and the
brutalist statue to the war dead set up in the Mussolini era in a position that
looked over the city and sea. When we got there, the heavens opened.
Fortunately, I had taken notice of the forecast, which was terrible, and I had
brought a very large brolly. We sheltered under it and didn’t move for over ten
minutes. The rain was so hard that, had we walked the few metres to the church,
we would have been paddling through deep water lying on the forum. Most of the
Italians were totally unprepared for rain. It was still pleasantly warm and
they were wearing summer outfits with no coats or brollies. We watch a group of
three young people attempting to shelter under small Cyprus trees on the edge
of the forum but that only worked for a couple of minutes and then they made a
run for it, paddling through the water and getting drenched in the process.
Once the rain stopped we headed down, passing the Roman theatre before heading
into the centre to find a bar for lunch.
We revisited the squares and plotted a route back to the bus station via
buildings of architectural interest. On the way we passed a fashion shoot with
a very grumpy-looking model wearing a rather unflattering dress.
Photos: The Lloyds building in Piazza Unita; The Roman theatre with its well preserved stage; The Casa Terni (aka Casa Smolars) built 1906 in a unique, totally over-the-top style; The model and her six assistants – note the large clip on her back holding her dress in place, no doubt this is optional if you buy the outfit; The canal under dark skies – this would have been a hive of activity in the 1800s with tall-masted merchant ships tied up along its length.
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