This morning we were delighted to wake up and experience the bora, or the strong winds that Trieste is famous for. The bora is strongest and most common in the winter, so we were lucky to experience it at all! When the bora is really ripping, seawater has actually been known to wash completely over the Molo Audace (the seawall we were on), and in the winter when it freezes it creates incredible wind-blown ice sculptures. We had noticed that all through town the sidewalks are lined with metal chains; it turns out the chains are there so that when the wind is blowing the pedestrians have something to hold on to! We didn’t get the full strength of Trieste’s bora, but our taste of it was pretty exciting. The wind died down later in the day, which worked well with our plans to go running along the sea wall as we had been most days of the week. At the end of our run, we discovered the Molo Audace partially blocked off and a crowd gathered in the Piazza. That evening was one of the launches for Dona Sangue Coast to Coast, a blood donation drive across the country that involved nightly music, a sailboat, and some talented drummers and flagthrowers. We joined the crowd in the Piazza for the performance, which led us back to the sea wall to hear Mike Sponza in concert at sunset. We stuck around after sunset for fireworks over the sea, a perfect next-to-last night farewell to the city.
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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.
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. |
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