Photo: Zinn |
There’s a 12:23 train from Venice Mestre Station which gets into
Trieste two hours later. On the platform two young men in their twenties, one
with an umbrella, protruding from his backpack, and the other with his head
shaved and a tattoo on his leg, smoke thin rolled cigarettes. On the train, an
older man begins chatting with two women, one of whom has an acne scarred face
and a tank top with Saint- Tropez embroidered in fake rhinestones. The older man is an obvious interloper who’s interrupted their
conversation, but they don’t seem to mind. The appearance of barges on the
Adriatic is the first sign that Trieste is imminent. Then there’s the statue
atop the tower hanging over the old stock exchange which now houses the chamber of commerce. Finally there’s the site of densely populated hills running into sea.
Being a port city Trieste, like Bari, is a center of trade. But besides
fishmongers, Trieste other natural resource is the James Joyce and Italo Svevo
tourism industry. Joyce taught English at the Berlitz school in Trieste (and began working on Ulysses there). At Berlitz one of his students was the Jewish writer Ettore Schmitz aka Italo Svevo, whose work he championed. A site Joyce lived in, is
now the Victoria Hotel. 404 is the Joyce suite. Joyce is to Trieste what Warren
Buffett is to Omaha. Though he only inhabited the city from 1904-1920, his relatively short stay made him one of the city’s major attractions—culturally that is (and stealing some thunder from Dublin). Joyce is a kind of rock star of Trieste and pictures of him are ubiquitous along with signs for Udine, the gateway to Slovenia and the
Friulean alps.
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