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Trieste Travel guide

Trieste hotels, Trieste vacation packages 2024 - 2025

Historically and culturally an international city, Trieste offers visitors a magic moment, which, for music and theatre lovers lasts the whole year.
Events which make it worth coming to Trieste are many and here we have picked out just a few, divided by period of year, according to season or particular occasions.

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Trieste Travel information

Travel Guide

Trieste Sights, sightseeing, culture:

Travel Guide

Trieste (ancient Tergeste; Serbo-Croatian Trst), city and port, north-eastern Italy, capital of Trieste Province and of Friuli-Venezia Giulia Region, on the Gulf of Trieste, at the north-eastern extremity of the Adriatic Sea. Trieste has an excellent harbour and extensive freight-handling facilities. Industries include shipbuilding, petroleum refining, and the manufacture of iron and steel products, textiles, machinery, and foodstuffs. The old section of the city is on the lower slopes of San Giusto hill, and the modern section fronts on the harbour. Among the city landmarks are an amphitheatre dating from Roman times and the Basilica di San Giusto (5th century). The University of Trieste (1938) is in the city, as is an institute for advanced study in physics (1979).

January and February: Trieste, and the neighbouring town of Muggia which is of Istrian and Venetian origin, prepare to celebrate Carnival. The climax of this colourful festival are processions where bands and thousands of people in costumes parade with allegorical floats.

March and April: visit the city's many museums and the aquarium where marine fauna from all over the world may be seen.

May and June are devoted to nature: take a walk between the sea and the sky along the Rilke path, run in the marathon, along the breath-taking, panoramic road between Monfalcone and Trieste, visit the Carsiana botanical gardens, the Giant Cave, the largest natural cavity in the world, or have something to eat in a characteristic "osmiza" on the Karst.

July and August is a time to relax sunbathing and swimming, enjoying a walk in Miramare Park, evenings spent at the Festival of Operetta or at one of the many open-air shows.

September and October are the most important month for lovers of sport and the sea. The "Barcolana" is the highlight of the season, the biggest international regatta in the Mediterranean in which nearly 2000 boats take part. And, for visitors who prefer dry land, the Karst is decked in her splendid autumn colours.

November and December are ideal months to discover Trieste through a wide variety of events. In November, for example, the most important Antique Fair in the region is held at the Maritime Terminal; whilst in December the city's streets abound with Christmas markets and there is a rich calendar of religious occasions, the churches are alive with music and events, from the splendid Synagogue to the "golden" Serb Orthodox church, from the Neo-Gothic Evangelical church to the Basilica of San Giuslo as well as a large exhibition of the most original nativity scenes at Palazzo Vivante.

Trieste was built as a Roman port by the emperor Augustus in the 1st century BC. After the dissolution of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD, it fell to Attila, king of the Huns; in the 6th century it passed to the Byzantine Empire. During the 8th century Trieste was ruled briefly by the Lombards of northern Italy and then passed to the Carolingian, or second, dynasty of Frankish kings. Later it became a free commune. In 1382 Trieste placed itself under the protection of Austria, maintaining that status except for two periods (1797-1805 and 1809-13), during which it was incorporated into French-dominated Italy, until after World War I. In 1719 the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI made Trieste a free port. With surrounding territory, it was constituted a separate crown land in 1867.

The Austrian government revoked the free-port privileges of the city in 1891, authorizing instead a free trade zone. As the only Austrian seaport and a natural outlet for countries of central Europe, Trieste prospered throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Italian troops captured the city, long an Italian irredentist centre, in 1918, during World War I. In 1919, by the terms of the Allied Treaty of Saint-Germain with Austria, the city, in which the Italian language and culture had long flourished, was assigned to Italy. Although the free trade zone was maintained, Trieste declined as a shipping centre under Italian rule, because it was politically cut off from central Europe; industrial growth, however, continued. Yugoslav troops captured the city in May 1945, during World War II. By the terms of the peace signed (1947) by Italy after the war, Trieste and the surrounding area were made part of the Free Territory of Trieste, which was placed under the protection of the United Nations.

The territory was divided into Zone A, which included the city of Trieste, and which was under Allied control, and Zone B, under Yugoslav control. Most of Zone A, including the city, was returned to Italian control under the provisions of an agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia, signed in 1954 and ratified by treaty in 1975, that allowed it to remain a free port. The rest of the territory was incorporated into Yugoslavia. It became part of Slovenia when the republic declared its independence in 1991.

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