Trieste

The Habsburg Empire's seaport, with Italy's largest seafront square, the white Miramare Castle and Viennese-style cafés, blending Italian, Austrian and Slavic influences.

Trieste sits in Italy's far northeastern corner at the northernmost tip of the Adriatic, hemmed in by the Karst plateau and the Slovenian border, and is the capital of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region. Once the only major seaport of the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire, it became part of Italy after 1918, and the city bears the diverse imprint of Italian, Austrian and Slovenian culture as well as Greek, Serbian and Jewish merchant communities — its coffee culture is especially strong. May–Oct is the best time to visit, and in summer you can swim along the Barcola seafront; in winter the bora often blows at over 100 km/h, and some streets have handrails fitted. The centre is easily explored on foot: Piazza Unità d'Italia, the Molo Audace pier, the Grand Canal and the Borgo Teresiano, the Roman Theatre, and the castle and cathedral on San Giusto hill, with historic cafés along the way. North along the coast are Miramare Castle and the Victory Lighthouse; to the northwest are Duino Castle and the Rilke Trail; on the Karst plateau are the Grotta Gigante and the Napoleonic Path, and across the border in Slovenia are the Škocjan Caves and the Lipica Stud Farm. Getting there: Trieste Airport is about 35 km from the city, linked by bus and train; trains from Venice take about 2 hours, and buses from Ljubljana about 1.5 hours. Allow 2–3 days.

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