148 GOURMET TRAVELLER
All this talk of shipping makes me reflect on the
comings and goings of people. Trieste has been a magnet
for migrants and exiles for centuries. Armenians, Jews,
Germans and Slavs have all passed through or stayed,
and businessmen from all over the Habsburg Empire
used to come to conduct their affairs here. The transit
of different cultures is reflected in the city’s places of
worship: the San Giusto Cathedral; the Greek
community’s San Nicolò dei Greci; the synagogue,
the Serbian Orthodox San Spiridone; the Waldensian,
Methodist and Anglican churches.
Intellectuals have always been drawn to the city,
too. Richard Burton finished his translation of
The Arabian Nights in nearby Opicina; James Joyce
wrote A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man here and
encouraged local novelist Italo Svevo with his writing;
Sigmund Freud came as a young researcher to study
eel copulation (no, really); Albert Einstein emigrated
to the States from the docks.
On the way home that night, the large seafront
buildings stand silent. I read the names on the
entry-phones. Bartoli, Billanovich, Zecchin, Tudor,
Kostoris, Quarantotto, Maier. They tell the story
of the city: part Slav, part Latin, part Germanic.I
t would be inexcusable to leave Trieste without
tasting the famed fish of the Adriatic. Everyone has
been recommending a place called La Tavernetta
al Molo in Grignano, a short drive along the coast,
and that’s where we’re headed on my last day. Driving
north we pass through the suburb of Barcola, where
the city doubles as a seaside resort. Every hundred
metres or so along the promenade is a topolino, a
round platform that serves as a solarium, and chioschi
selling sandwiches, ice-creams and drinks. This is where
the Triestini sunbathe and swim in summer.
Then, on a promontory ahead, the solitary white
castle of Miramare appears, built in the 1850s for
Austrian Archduke Maximilian and his wife, Carlota,
the King of Belgium’s daughter. Maximilian was as
tragic a figure as his sister-in-law Empress Sisi.
Sponsored by Napoleon III, in 1864 he sailed off to
become Emperor of Mexico, only to be executed by a
government firing squad three years later. Surrounded
by parkland, decorated opulently and housing countless
treasures, the castle is Trieste’s most-visited attraction.
Grignano is a fishing village in the adjacent bay,
and La Tavernetta turns out to be a trattoria with
tables on the marina. It’s not high season and it’s
a weekday, yet the place is packed. Karin turns on
her thespian charm and manages to secure a corner
table. The handwritten menu is an embarras de
richesses. The standout for me is bis di polentine,
two piles of polenta, one topped with cuttlefish
in its ink, hence black, the other with baccalà alla
vicentina, creamed stockfish, hence white. Toothsome,too, is the communal pot of bigoli in cassopipa, an
old Venetian dish of homemade pasta and mixed
seafood. It’s straightforward fare but cooked with care
and skill, and very fresh.
One thing other Italians do know about Trieste
is that here blows the Bora, the rasping cold wind
that whips down from the Carso in winter. On my
last evening we’re back in town, eating more fish at
Salvagente, a homely osteria just off the promenade.
Chef and owner Marco Munari is sitting at our table,
chatting and explaining how violent the bora can be.
When it clears the air you can see as far as the dome
of Basilica San Marco in Venice, he says. Suddenly,
as he’s speaking, rain starts lashing the window and
we hear ominous groaning from outside. The table
umbrellas are about to be blown away. “Il Neverin!”
exclaims Marco as if he’s seen a ghost. He rushes
out with Georges hot on his heels. They return,
drenched and bruised, but they’ve saved the umbrellas.
“What’s this neverin?” I ask. “The summer version
of the Bora,” replies Marco.
During the night, the Neverin does its work and
I leave Trieste on a sparkling summer morning, the
Alps sharply defined on the horizon. As the train, the
Frecciarossa, or Red Arrow, speeds along the coast,
the city recedes, then disappears. But not forever.
When I get home to Turin, I send a message to my
niece in Newcastle, with a photo of Piazza dell’Unità.
“Just back from here. Trieste,” I write. “Beautiful,” she
messages back. “Where is it?” ●