Blogs from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy, Europe

29 nov (Toujours à Piran, Slovénie) Le seul autocar qui rejoint l'Italie à partir de Piran demande aux voyageurs de se lever bien bonne heure: départ vers Trieste à 6h45AM. Les quatre places de stationnement réservées pour les grands bus à la ville portuaire se font balayer par le vent noir du large. Toutes les lumières sont éteintes au Café Neptune d'à côté, là où j'avais prit l'habitude de commander des Cappuccinos que je buvotais silencieusement en observant la mer. Je ne suis pas le seul dans la navette ce matin, mais peu iront jusqu'à l'Italie. Inaperçue, la frontière passera sans rien dire, quoique les rebords de la grande Trieste (+ ou - 235 000 habitants) me laisseront tout de même présumer ma sortie de Slovénie (il n'y a que 25 kilomètres qui séparent Piran de ... read more

Bonjour à tous, Enfin de retour en Italie. La soirée d'hier, avec les teutons et teutonnes, à été vite classée. Le resto de bord de mer, à 300m de l'hôtel, très bien, je me suis régalé de calamars grillés. Mais la clientèle tout un spectacle. Je ne pensais pas, que des gens avec aussi peu de classe pouvaient exister. Les gars, bedonnant, en slip de bain, les femmes pareils, en soutien gorge, je ne vous ferais pas rêver avec plus de description. Ce matin, je croise, ma belle dame toujours aussi classe, et peu avenante. Au moment de partir, je lui rends la clé (carte magnétique) et lui demande pour sortir la voiture, et là avec un grand et beau sourire sorti de je ne sais où: mais je vous garde. Ok si c'est avec vous, ... read more

NOTE: photos have been down on Travelblog, but it's been fixed, so if you couldn't see the photos in previous blogs, you can now! We were encouraged by the woman at the tourist office to buy a couple of two day $25 tourist passes, good for city buses, museums, and a boat ride to the town of Grado, where we could get a bus to two other towns we wanted to visit (Aquileia and Palmanova) We decided not to try to catch the 8:30 am boat, but to take the next one at 1:00 pm, thinking we would have enough time to visit at least one of the towns and catch the last boat back at 6:30. We were wrong. We decided to visit a few museums while waiting for the boat, and started out by ... read more

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 ... read more

Our guide in Trieste, Suzi, was a serious person and a wonderful teacher. She brought a binder full of maps. Showing us the local geography and national boundaries was helpful in our gaining a bit more understanding of the complex history of the Adriatic area. Trieste changed nationalities seven time in relatively modern times. It was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which the government invited in as a defence against Venetian hegemony. For thirty years it was occupied by Napoleon, who in this area was defeated by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After WWI Mussolini was granted the city for the Italians and changed its character for twenty years, persecuting Slavs and Croatians. Endemic fascist tendencies resulted in the city being on the wrong side of WWII. For some years it was almost part of Slovenia, but a ... read more