Bad beginnings in the coffee capital of Italy

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We said goodbye to the Dolomites and our lovely apartment and hosts yesterday morning, and drove south, visiting two pretty towns on the way to to the airport to return our car. The first was Serravalle, an unplanned stop. The town had a canal running through it, and beautiful buildings, along with a market, where I bought a fanny pack to replace the one I left home. The next was Oderzo, another town with canals, and not quite as pretty, but still nice.

We said goodbye to our little car at the airport, caught a bus into Mestre, outside of Venice, and then took a train to Trieste, our home for the next five days. I had expanded my suitcase so I could fit my backpack and its contents inside. It therefore did not fit in the luggage area in our train car, so Bill, I, and another passenger barely hefted it up on the rack...unpleasant, to say the least...

Once at the Trieste Station, we decided to walk, since it was supposed to be just 15 minutes to our B&B. The directions neglected to say was all up hill on a busy and very noisy street with bad sidewalks, ending in 85 steps up to our street! We walked around the block and up the hill to avoid the steps but we were exhausted when we got to our new apartment! Once inside, disappointment set in quickly. It was shabby, and the owner's things take up all the storage in the bedroom. The kitchen has almost no equipment, including no way to make coffee (except instant)...and there was only one sheet and a chenille spread on the bed...And then we couldn't find a way to flush the toilet, which is wedged under the sink...Loud scooters were parking outside our window, and the kids upstairs were thumping around on the ceiling...

The wifi worked, and we figured out the toilet with the manager's help. We went out to eat, and were depressed by the grimy streets and buildings we passed. Everyone was smoking and and the men looked like thugs. We eventually came to a pedestrian street, and sat at a cafe/bar outside, and had a delicious four cheese pizza. The owners/cooks are an older couple. A group of rough looking men were hanging out in front, but we decided that one might be their son. After dinner, we walked down the pedestrian way towards the town center, and the buildings became beautiful, and we cheered up...it was silent all night, so we slept fairly well under the scratchy bedspread.

In the morning, I found another sheet, and made Greek coffee in the only pot in the kitchen; Bill made eggs in the tiny frying pan, and after a shower in the tiny, tiny stall, we set off to see the sights. And the sights are many! The Castle, Roman ruins, cathedral, waterfront, and amazing buildings, one after another...

There are more cafes than I have ever seen in a city...and we stopped in two today: one for gelato (founded in 1907, so "new") and one for lunch We tried to buy our ferry to Slovenia tickets before walking home, but didn't have our passports with us, so we'll have to get them on line.

Trieste has switched hands for millennia!

"Since the second millennium BC, the location was an inhabited site. Originally an Illyrian settlement, the Veneti entered the region in the 10th–9th c. BC and seem to have given the town its name, Tergeste, since <em style="color:𶐎 font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">terg* is a Venetic word meaning market.

Trieste was retained for a time by the Roman Emperor seated at Constantinople, and thus became a Byzantine military outpost. In 539, the Byzantines annexed it to the Exarchate of Ravenna and, despite Trieste's being briefly taken by the Lombards in 567 in the course of their invasion of northern Italy, held it until the time of the coming of the Franks.

During the 13th and 14th centuries, Trieste became a maritime trade rival to the Republic of Venice which briefly occupied it in 1283–87, before coming under the patronage of the Patriarchate of Aquileia. After it committed a perceived offence against Venice, the Venetian State declared war against Trieste in July 1368 and by November had occupied the city. Venice intended to keep the city and began rebuilding its defenses, but was forced to leave in 1372. By the Peace of Turin in 1381, Venice renounced its claim to Trieste and the leading citizens of Trieste petitioned Leopold III of Habsburg, Duke of Austria, to make Trieste part of his domains.

Trieste was one of the oldest parts of the Habsburg Monarchy, belonging to it from 1382 until 1918. In the 19th century the monarchy was one of the Great Powers of Europe and Trieste was its most important seaport. As a prosperous seaport in the Mediterranean region, Trieste became the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (after Vienna, Budapest, and Prague). In the fin de siècle period at the end of the 19th century it emerged as an important hub for literature and music. Trieste underwent an economic revival during the 1930s, and Trieste was an important spot in the struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs after the Second World War." (Wikipedia) The only concentration camp in Italy was in Trieste.

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Photos

Oderzo
Stained glass window

Our apartment in Trieste
Our windows are on the right

Our toilet...partially under the sink
The cord to flush is it is high above...

The Roman ruins from the Castle
They were rediscovered in the 1930s

A model of the Villa at Barcola
An amazing Roman villa on the sea...excavated in the 1930s.

The origin of the word "python"
A Roman copy of the egg shaped stone that the Greeks believed marked the navel of the world. The original was found at Delphi, and this copy was found near here. Python was a serpent god, the enemy of light, and was slain by Apollo.