At the start of October I found myself between roles at work and with an increasing desire to escape London for the last of the summer sun. Flights to Oslo were cheap but the forecast dreary. Ireland was tempting but I’m not sure how fun Dublin is alone. (Sadly no friends found themselves with similarly last minute leave!)
So, to Trieste I went! Or rather, I flew in to Venice then caught the coastal train across to Trieste as the sun set on the sea. The golden sky was quickly replaced by a monsoon as we pulled in, which ironically coincided with the BBC weather app glitching to predict typhoons across Europe.
After finding my tiny hotel room in the centre of the city, I postponed my plans to explore and instead sought refuge from the lashing rain and whirling winds in a warm looking taverna. For a first solo dinner experience, it was pretty great - delicious food (obviously) and good people watching.
As is (happily) often the case, I woke up to blue blue skies and sun pouring through the shutters before consuming the first of many croissants and cappuccinos. My trip coincided with a sailing festival so the harbour front was studded with stalls and filled with locals admiring swanky yachts and their Prosecco drinking owners.
Following a morning spent pounding the pavements, including a climb up to an epic viewpoint, I could resist no longer and made the (longer than expected) walk to the sea. It could easily have been august, but for the distinct lack of people actually in the water. The handful of swimmers, however, was enough to dispel my jellyfish fears so in I went.
Day two was perhaps one of the most scenic of my life thus far. And that’s not just blog-induced theatricals. After another croissant albicocca I caught a bus to Castello di Miramare - a fairytale former residence of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian (younger brother of Franz Josef) and his wife, Charlotte of Belgium. Schloss Schönbrunn won’t quite look the same again I fear. Think Gatsby turrets and Alice in Wonderland botanical gardens overlooking a turquoise ocean, set against a gently craggy coastline. If magic exists, I’m pretty sure you’d find it there.
Day three didn’t go quite as planned but after such a dreamy afternoon in the Miramare grounds the day before, I couldn’t complain. Due to a national rail strike (!), my 10am train to Venice was unfortunately replaced by fortunate last seat aboard a 6pm Flixbus. But there was something pretty exciting about arriving in Venice by night and scurrying through a multitude of dark alleyways, confident that I was going to be hurled into the canal by a masked stranger around every corner. Both Thomas Mann and Ian Fleming have a lot to answer for.
After my only night in the city, I woke up with a resolve to see as much as possible by using google maps as little as possible. I nosed into a million churches, admired a billion glass ornaments and exploited the Italian food scene a few final times - highlights including an array of lunchtime cicchetti followed by a selection of pasticceria delights.
And then I caught the vaporetto to the airport and zipped across the sea back to reality!
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