Friday, December 14, 2018

Northern Italy

Northern Italy

28 September, Airbnb, Trieste, Italy
We arrived in sunny, warm Trieste, fairly much on time, just before noon. Our last couple of trips have been with FlixBus, a fairly big operator in Europe. They have a smoothly operating website that takes payments from standard credit cards and PayPal. They also accept electronic tickets, which is a big attraction, as printing tickets on the move can be a bit of a pain.

Slovenia has some beautiful rural countryside, almost Swiss, with rolling hills that look like golf course greens and little villages with houses with steeply gabled roofs. Then, about 20 kms out of Trieste we crossed a small mountain range which must have marked the entry into the drier, Mediterranean coastal area. Suddenly, most of the green was replaced by light brown grasses and far fewer trees.

Trieste is a port city and from our window on this crystal clear afternoon, we can see the deep blue of the northern Mediterranean and the mantis-like cranes of the port.

Our apartment must surely be the biggest Airbnb in the world. Easily as big as our home in Brisbane, it sleeps five and has a kitchen that could cater for a small function.  Everything screams Italian chic.  The only drawback is the sloping, attic ceilings in the main bedroom. We foresee some minor head injuries during our stay. Just two minutes from the train station and bus terminal, supermarket on the corner and five minutes' walk to the centre of town, we are made!

We have never had too much difficulty communicating in Italian. The Italians generally are so good at using body language along with the spoken word to get a message across that all you have to do is watch as much as listen. Our problem is that having spent some time in South America recently, we tend to get our limited Italian confused with our equally limited Spanish.

29 September, Trieste
Having spent a bit of time last night exploring the Trieste transport system on the web, we were fully prepared for our planned journeys to the outer suburbs to visit Castello Miramare to the north of the city and Risiera di San Sabba to the south. While the technology used by transport systems in big cities around the world has advanced enormously in the last decade or so, some traditions still remain. The little kiosk selling magazines, cigarettes and snacks at the bus stop still sells single tickets just as they have always done. But today you can track the location of your bus on your smartphone, pay online and, in Trieste, there is also Wifi on the bus.

Castello Miramare was the home of Prince Maximilian, the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph. Maximillian drew what ended up being a very short straw when he accepted the offer of Napoleon III to become Emperor of Mexico in 1864. He ruled for three years before the Mexicans, who had had enough of European rule, overthrew him. He was executed in 1867.We put ourselves in the place of the average Mexican in 1864 and wondered how it was that they were expected to accept rule by an Austrian prince.


The strategic location of Trieste at the head of the Adriatic has meant that it has often been fought over and occupied. During WWII, after Italy signed an armistice with the allies, German forces occupied Trieste and surrounding areas of today’s Slovenia and Croatia. Risiera di San Sabba, an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Trieste, was established as a concentration camp to “process” Resistance fighters, political prisoners and Jews. Though it was on a much smaller scale than the mass camps in Poland and Germany, the crimes committed here were no less grievous. Today the site is a memorial to those who suffered and died here in one of the probably hundreds of similarly little known sites throughout Europe.

30 September, Trieste
Two cruise ships loomed at the quay as we rounded the corner on the short walk from our apartment towards the old city centre, but only a few hundred of the floating hordes seem to have elected to come ashore. This extremely pleasant and surprisingly small city was thus largely left to us and the locals.

We were in no rush today, so we wandered about a little, well yes, we did get a bit lost, but what a great place to do just that on another perfect day.

Eventually we found the Museo Revoltella, a mixture of city palace and modern art gallery. Built by Baron de Revoltella in the mid-19th century, the house was pure opulence! The good Baron was a great collector of fine art and his collection has been augmented by the city to create a fantastic collection of local art. We had never heard of any of the artists, but we found a lot to like in the six floors of sculpture and paintings. At just AUD$3 it was great value as well.

We found the overly-renovated Roman amphitheatre a bit so-so. The Castle San Giusto was likewise a fairly modern reconstruction, but with great views over the city and environs.


The highlight of the day was the Arch of Riccardo. In a small square, difficult to find among the winding streets of the old city, we thought this 33BC Roman monument really deserved a visit and some respect. Only in Italy. Somehow, the city fathers at some point had decided that poor old Riccardo, whoever he was, really didn’t deserve that much respect. An apartment block has been built adjacent to the arch, using one of the arch pillars to support its outer wall.



2 October, Airbnb Milano
We lucked out with the weather yesterday; it rained most of the day. The lucky bit was that we were on the bus between Trieste and Milan. By the time we arrived, just one hour late this time, the sky was clearing and the rain had stopped. This has been only our second rainy day in more than a month. On the other rainy day, we were driving most of the day as well. Today was what we have come to expect - not a cloud in the sky and a little cooler, which is good.

Many years ago we commented on leaving the subway in Cologne and being overwhelmed by the cathedral that loomed above us as we climbed the stairs. Today was just as impressive an entry onto the Piazza del Duomo. The cathedral virtually filled the sky.



The crowds in the square and lined up to enter the cathedral were not on the scale we had experienced in Dalmatia, but it was still busy, to say the least. The security on entering was extremely strict and conducted by the military. Rigorous as they were, the soldiers were extremely friendly and all was managed with good humour. No matter how often we say, “not another cathedral” we can’t resist these fantastic medieval masterpieces. They never cease to amaze us, not so much for their religious significance, but for the astounding skill and ingenuity of their designers and builders.

Along with thousands of others, we climbed to the top terraces for a closer look at the spires and the sculptures that adorned them. Looking down on the piazza, we noted that the crowd had grown significantly. What must it be like in July and August?

As we have both succumbed to a second bout of the heavy colds we brought with us to Europe over a month ago, we decided on a light day. Besides our wracking coughs were frightening small children and spooking the horses.

After a rather nice sandwich lunch at a little hole in the wall cafe, we visited the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan’s famous art gallery. By reputation, the Pinacoteca is a must-see. To be honest we were a little disappointed. Initially sponsored by Napoleon when he made Milan the capital of “his” Italy, it was established to rival the Louvre. The focus was on 14th – 16th century religious art and there was, without a doubt, a fine collection of this genre, but religious art has never been our thing.

To this point in our travels, we have been using buses, partly because train services in the Balkans were infrequent or not available at all, but also because of the extremely cheap fares. The drawback with the buses is that they can run late, sometimes very late, usually due to traffic. Tomorrow we hit the rails with a fairly high expectation of punctuality. Even in Italy trains have a good record for running on time. Then we are into Germany where, a little like Japan, being on time is a matter of pride.

Most of the Airbnbs we have stayed in on this trip have been inner city apartments. On the whole they have been extremely comfortable, even bordering on luxurious on a couple of occasions. Although we pay, on average, AUD$120 a night for city apartments, a bit less in the country, apartment stays are a great way to manage the budget on long trips such as those we mostly take. While eating out every night would be great, the dollars soon disappear, especially if a beer or wine is added into the menu. When travelling in Asia, we do eat out far more regularly, but of course costs there are much lower. Even there, though, it is good every now and then to grab something to eat in, have a shower, throw on some more comfortable gear and relax.

4 October, Airbnb, Torino (Turin), Italy
Our train trip from Milan yesterday was a minor disaster financially. We had checked our possible trains on the web and found a good cheap, but slow trip at $23 AUD. It was only a regional trip, so just picking up tickets at the station was the go. Milan station is the largest in Europe by passenger volume, but we weren’t fazed by that. Veteran Japanese train travellers, we have managed stations there with daily passenger throughputs that Milan wouldn’t manage in a month.

Over-confident as usual, we bowled up to the first ticket machine we saw and selected what we thought was our previously researched, favoured train. Once the tickets were printed we noted the price. AUD$45 each! Seems we had used the wrong machine and our regional train hadn’t come up on the menu so we had picked one leaving at almost the same time. Never mind, we had a very fast trip on one of Italy’s super-fast trains.

We are again right beside the station and in walking distance of the city centre. The Airbnb experience is still working well for us, except that this apartment is a little run-down and in a bit of a rough neighbourhood.

We travelled to the city’s outskirts today by tram to visit the House of Savoy Palace and Basilica Superga. Our usual planning was a little off as we had failed to notice that the vintage cog tramway to the top of the mountain where the palace and basilica were located only ran on the hour. Of course, we arrived 10 minutes past the hour.

We climbed to the top of the bell tower of the basilica for a spectacular view of the city below and took a guided tour of the Savoy family apartments, in Italian. Mind you we did have four pages of English description, but the guide sprouted out at least 50 times that amount of dialogue.

Our history of Italian Unification is a bit vague since we studied it well over 40 years ago, but from what we recall, the broad picture is that Italy in the 19th Century was a mixed collection of City States like Florence and Venice and for want of a better term, family feudal estates of which the House of Savoy was one. Then along came Senor Garibaldi and his small force of 1000 red-shirted revolutionaries who gradually brought the diverse states and cites under the control of the Italian Monarchy. We know it was far more complex than this, but any simplification of Italian history can only be a good thing.

Torino boasts the second-best Egyptian Museum in the world. We aren’t sure of the veracity of this claim, but it was definitely the best collection we have seen, a little too much so in fact for so late in a long day.
5 October, Torino
Last day in Italy today. Over the Alps to Germany tomorrow.

We had another disappointing visit, this time to the GAM, Turin’s gallery of Contemporary and Modern Art. Only half the Gallery was open, the second floor being closed for restoration, the floor where all the better known art was on display.

Our second outing of the day was a far more memorable experience - the National Museum of Cinema, in the fantastic Mole Antonelliana  building. Movie fan or not, everybody surely must love this place. From extensive collections of historic cinema technology, through clips from classic original European and American films, to an enormous atrium displaying movies of every imaginable genre, a full day could happily disappear in this fantastic museum.


One of the Catholic legends that we were brought up with was the Shroud of Turin. For many centuries, the shroud was claimed to be original, used to wrap Jesus after the crucifixion. More recent scientific investigation has challenged this notion to the point where the official version presented in the Turin Cathedral is that the shroud is associated with a man who was tortured and crucified. Whichever version one believes, this relic has become one of the best known in the world. While there was a special sealed room where the shroud is held, the room was empty except for a photo of a head on the shroud, yet people seemed enthralled. Not so, us.

While the weather for our stay has been perfect, our now persistent heavy colds and barking coughs have put a bit of a damper on our enjoyment. However, despite our health issues, we have loved the city.

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