di Sergio Mauri

This is a post, following others, that wants to suggest you what you can visit in our wonderful town,
Trieste. Right in the morning you can reach and visit the Museo Sveviano, where the personal books,
editions, critical texts and translations concerning this writer and novelist of Trieste, Italo Svevo, can
be found. Afterwards, you can go to the Revoltella Museum, a very important art gallery founded in
1872 by Revoltella Baron who, in his will, left the building and his art collection to the town, together
with a considerable fortune which allowed the collection to grow fast.
Wether you are concerned about Trieste’s museums and cultural heritage, you can visit the Morpurgo
Museum. This is a wonderful example of a bourgeois mansion furnished with sumptuous splendor
where the interiors, all original, represent different historical styles following the taste of the second
half of the nineteenth century.
Afterwards, you can drink a coffe and eat a tasty cake in a bar downtown, for example at the Illy bar,
in Einaudi Street, beside Piazza della Borsa.
After lunch you can visit the San Giusto Hill, which is an historical and archaeological landmark of
great interest for the Roman ruins which are still visible in front of the ancient church dedicated to
the Saint.
The following day you can visit the Castle of Duino, It is built on a cliff overlooking the Gulf of
Trieste. This place is a stone’s throw from the very famous trail named after the poet Rilke who,
between 1911 and 1912, stayed at the Castle as a guest or the Princes of Thurn und Taxis. It was,
indeed, while walking along this path that Rilke found the inspiration to write the verses of his “Elegie
Duinesi”.
The Castle is presented to the public as a noble, cheerful mansion, still inhabitated by the current
princes of Thurn und Taxis, who decided to open to the public both their park and large sections of
the historic building. If you stroll along the seaside you can enjoy the enchanting landscape and have
a dinner at a restaurant of your choice.
We want to say something more about James Joyce in order to celebrate his figure and character.
James Joyce spent in Trieste nearly 16 year of a very creative and busy life. It has been here he wrote
most of Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. On arrival, he left his young wife Nora
Barnacle on a park bench opposite the station while he hunted for a place to stay. He instead got
arrested along with some rowdy English sailors and had to be rescued from jail by a reluctant consul.
He carried on behaving just as unreliably for the next decade, unable to support his family without
the help of his steady brother Stanislaus who settled in Trieste.
His family happiest period was spent living on the third floor at number 4 Via Bramante, near some
elegant steps leading to the Basevi Gardens. Their young son and daughter attended the local school,
where they picked up the harsh Triestine dialect. The these days pedestrianised Via San Nicolò was
where the Joyces lived at number 32 above the Berlitz School which employed Joyce. Next door is
the Umberto Saba Antiquarian bookshop, little changed from the time that it was owned by Joyce’s
friend, the celebrated Triestine poet Umberto Saba.