TRIESTE, return to my roots

I was actually born in Koper, now an important Slovenian port, but for centuries Roman, Venetian, and Italian. After the Second World War, it was occupied by Yugoslavia, led by socialist dictator Tito, who oppressed us, ethnically cleansed us, Slavicized our surnames, and forced us to flee. My family settled in Trieste, just 20 kilometers away, around the corner, but in between was the border that separated two different worlds. I was only five years old and lived almost two years in a refugee camp on the Trieste Karst in Padriciano, now a museum open to visitors on weekends. In that camp, five of us lived in a ten-square-meter room with a bunk bed, a small table, and two chairs, without running water or heating. 1957 was so cold that a newborn baby froze to death, so the authorities transferred all the children to the children's hospital in Trieste to protect them from the cold, including me. Many emigrated to Australia or Canada, and my parents had also decided to move to America. But then an Italian passenger ship, the Andrea Doria, sank a few miles from New York, killing about a hundred people. My parents were frightened and decided to stay in Trieste, where I lived for 37 years until 1993, when I moved to Lombardy because I had a daughter with a Lombard woman I met during a 1986 trip to Turkey and Jordan. I graduated as an accountant in Trieste in 1969. I attended university for a while, taking about a dozen exams, but after my military service, I dropped everything and went to work in a bank because my parents were elderly and ill. I worked at the same bank for 36 years between Trieste, Gorizia, Monfalcone, and Milan. I retired in 2007, deciding to stay in Lombardy, first in Milan, where I lived for 15 years, and then in the Como area, where I have lived for 15 years. My relationship with my daughter's mother ended after seven years, although we continued to see each other, though we lived in separate homes. Two years ago, I bought an apartment in Trieste, feeling the strong pull of this beautiful city where I spent my entire youth and where I still have friends and relatives. This is the sixth year that I've returned to live there for a couple of months at the end of the summer, first as a guest of friends and now in my own home. I returned there a couple of days ago and plan to stay for a couple of months. I'm posting some photos of the first places where I spent pleasant hours by the sea. This is the Costa dei Barbari, a wild and rocky coastline located in Sistiana, 15 km from the city along the coastal road towards Monfalcone. You park your car in the spaces adjacent to the road and then descend along some paths to the beach. The water is very clean and clear, and there are several shaded areas, some fallen rocks, and the remains of the long piers where a century ago ships docked to transport precious stones from the Aurisina quarries. These stones reached half the world, and were used to build entire important buildings, such as the Milan train station. Naturism is permitted, but this is an option reserved for amateurs; others are welcome to wear swimsuits. The next day, I opted for the Barcola coast, famous for its regatta on the first weekend of October, which attracts thousands of boats and sailboats from all over the Mediterranean. It consists of a beautiful pine forest with an adjacent promenade, which I prefer because I love the shade, and then the public bathing establishments called "topolini," where generations of Triestini learned to swim, spent their adolescence in the company of their friends, and where they return as old men after having chosen more distant destinations such as Istria, Dalmatia, Grado, and Lignano. Note the signs recently appearing in the "topolini" dedicated to famous people connected to Trieste, such as the Zadar-born designer Ottavio Missoni and the actress Ave Ninchi. From Barcola, I photographed the ridge of the Karst plateau on which the Marian temple, known as the "Formaggino" in Trieste and a place of pilgrimage, stands. I also photographed some houses in the Prosecco village, where the famous wine was born. It later spread to the Veneto region, especially the province of Treviso, but is originally from Trieste. u

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