Today we spent the afternoon taking in some of Trieste’s history by visiting the Civico Museo del Castello di San Giusto, or the Castle of San Giusto. The castle is built on one of the highest points in the city, not far from the water, and was a strategic point for defending the port. With such a location the walk up and down through the steep hills certainly counted for our cardio for the day. Built over the remains of a previous castle, construction on this castle was started in the 1400s. The views from the castle were amazing looking over the city, and its use as a defensive post was very clear. Furthermore, the castle’s armory was filled with centuries-old swords, guns, and assorted weapons that were fascinating to examine. Our evening began with a look into Trieste’s more recent history, as we attended a performance at the Teatro Verdi--1913 Trieste a Teatro, put on to celebrate a hundred years of opera in Trieste and the opening of the theater’s exhibit at the Civico Museo Teatrale “Carlo Schmidl.” The Teatro Verdi is like a small version of La Scala in Milan, and we were lucky to have great seats with other Joyce School students. After the opera, we met up with everyone involved with the Joyce School for a farewell dinner at L’Antico Panada hosted by Irish ambassador Patrick Hennessy. It was a full Italian dinner of many courses, which provided lots of time for great conversation with our friends from the week.
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Fourth of July? Oops. We didn't exactly celebrate Independence Day this year (in fact, Charla hasn't for a while now), but we did enjoy another wonderful day in Trieste. As usual, Charla went to lectures and her seminar during the day while Chase explored the city. When Charla and Chase met back up after the afternoon seminar, it was time for dinner and we checked out the neighborhood by the Grand Canal. We found Fratelli di Bufala, which turned out to be a real treat. The food was great, and the view along the canal at sunset was not too shabby. Charla loved her margherita pizza, and Chase had a bit of a culinary adventure. The server pointed to an item on the menu that looked good, and was priced reasonably, so Chase just went for it. It turned out to be some amazing meat dish that defies explanation! A calzone filled with mozzarella and topped by strips of meat with shredded parmesan, it was a delicious meat feast! After dinner, Charla went down the street to a performance given by Irish tenor Noel O'Grady, whom we'd heard earlier in the week at our Irish sing-a-long. Following the concert, we were hopeful for another spectacular night at Barge Bar with Joyce School friends in tow. Unfortunately, the barge was closed. We moved closer to the Piazza Unità d'Italia to Bar Unità, where we shared Peroni and pelinkovac (a Croatian liquor that tastes remarkably like a bar of Ivory Spring soap) with the group.
Once again while Charla was attending her morning lectures, Chase sought out the unique museums of Trieste. The first one he found was the Museo Ferroviario di Campo Marzio, the museum about the railroad in Trieste. Housed in an old train station, the museum housed four tracks worth of old and interesting trains in the railyard. After spending time in the sun poking around the unique trains, Chase ended up at the Civico Museo del Mare, or the museum of the sea. This museum was focused on Trieste’s maritime history, but was surprising in that it told the entire story using intricately detailed model ships. Following the afternoon Ulysses seminar, Charla met up with Chase to go on a walking tour of Joyce’s Trieste that included the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Nicholas, the Berlitz School (where both James and Stanislaus worked as English teachers), and one of the many apartments where James Joyce lived with Nora Barnacle in the city. Joyce’s Trieste was surely different from the one we experienced, but a cosmopolitan air persists in this city whose nationality used to change frequently. The windy backstreets of the city seem unchanged from the turn of the century aside from some of the shops and restaurants that populate them. We returned down the alley of Osteria da Marino to find piadine at La Piadíneria. As a student in Bologna, Charla adored these flat bread sandwiches stuffed with veggies and cheese (and meat for those so inclined), and after finding piadine nearby, we made this café a favorite stop in the city.
After piadine, Chase went for a twilight run along the sea wall while Charla attended Michael Longley’s reading at Civico Museo Teatrale “Carlo Schmidl.” The Museo is located right along the small Grand Canal, so the barge bar at Caffé Rossi was an ideal choice for an evening social beverage. While Charla was in her morning lectures, Chase visited the Museo Postale e Telegrafico della Mitteleuropa, or the Trieste postal museum. This museum was a pretty obvious choice, because Chase is fascinated with the world’s postal services. The museum was not geared to non-Italian speakers, but luckily one of the museum employees was very excited that Chase had traveled all the way from Alaska so she gave him a personal tour. Unfortunately, she didn’t speak English and Chase didn’t speak Italian, but they made it all the way through the museum together. This evening was one of our favorite moments with the Joyce School. We gathered at the Osteria da Marino for dinner and music led by Gerry Smyth. The osteria’s main room, which we filled beyond capacity, featured a piano and was decorated with old rugby uniforms for the team it sponsors, photographs, and sailing paraphernalia. Gerry performed several selections from Joyce’s “Chamber Music” as well as some traditional Irish ballads to get the crowd involved. We picked up one of his CD’s to listen to on our drive as well!
For breakfast today we went to one of last night’s last stops, and we started our day at Eldur & Is with some delicious breakfast crêpes with our Alaskan friends. As they were figuring out their plans for the day, we went off to the National Museum of Iceland. To our delight, the museum was hosting an exhibit by famous Icelandic photographer Sigfús Eymundsson, who neither of us had ever heard of before. His photographs of Iceland in the late 1800s and early 1900s were quite similar to photographs of Alaska of the same time period, and elicited the same feelings of cold and isolation at northern latitudes; needless to say, Chase loved them. In addition to that exhibit, it was a really well-organized museum: it told the entire story of the history of Iceland starting from The Settlement in 871 AD and coming to Y2K. We definitely enjoyed the museum, and now know a lot more Iceland’s history. After the museum, we stopped by 1011 (an Icelandic convenience store) to purchase our supplies for a picnic lunch. The Hljómskálagarðurinn neighborhood of Reykjavík was beautiful in the sunshine, and we ate after strolling around Tjörnin Lake. Later that evening, we finally were able to take part in a signature Icelandic tradition: geothermal hot spring pools! But instead of going out to a beautiful, remote location, we went for the true Reykjavíkian experience of taking a dip in the Laugardalslaug Public Pool in the city. The public pool consisted of a collection of hot tubs of varying water temperatures, a children’s area, and a lap pool. We packed into the hot tubs with all the rest of Reykjavík who were relaxing after a day’s work. With an air temperature of 8oC and water temperature of 40oC, it was a very refreshing experience.
From there we took a scenic walk along the water back to the hostel, where we made a late dinner before going out to Ölsmiðjan Café-Bar (a.k.a. Polar Bar and Home Bar) for a last Polar Beer. With the sun out all the time, like in Alaska, we didn’t even realize we were well into the night by dinner time. The early morning hours approached, and so we called it a night just a little too late to sample the pylsur hot dogs or kleina donuts on the walk back to the hostel. I guess we’ll just have to go back to Iceland one day… At the bright and early hour of 6AM local time, we got our first glimpses of Iceland as our flight descended into Keflavik. An hour later our bus was dropping us off on Laugavegur, a nice area of Reykavik, where we found our hostel. After getting set up for the night at Reykjavik Backpackers, we started wandering around town. The first thing we found was the biggest landmark in the city, Hallgrímskirkja Church. The church is the tallest building in the city with a gigantic interior space, as well as a giant organ with over 5,000 pipes! We also wandered down to the harbor where we found the new Harpa performing arts center. Saving the best for last of our morning wander, we explored the Iceland Phallological Museum. Yes, you read that right: we found possibly the world's only penis museum! All our wandering made us hungry, and at that point eating Iceland's signature hot dog wasn't a great idea! One of the only affordable dining options in Rejkavik is the ever-present noodle house, and we found a great option at Noodle Station near our hostel. Maybe it was the noodle soup, the grey skies, or we thought it might be the jetlag, but after lunch we passed out and slept the afternoon away.
Luckily, we awoke in time for Alaskan adventures! We met up with our friend Laura and her friend Caleb, both from Anchorage, in the bar below our hostel for our first taste of Icelandic beer! Unfortunately, Viking beer really doesn't live up to its name. Always the frugal travelers, we soon moved to Micro Bar in time for happy hour and found a tasty beverage: Gæðingur! Now that is a beer worthy of the Vikings! Laura and Caleb had been in Iceland for a couple weeks, so after a dinner of noodles, their local knowledge brought us to Ölsmiðjan Café-Bar for one last Polar Beer to end the night. Between the recent half-marathon, a late night in Alaska, and the time zones, we slept like babies on our first night in Iceland! |
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