“Trieste is actually a non-place” was told to me by the host of the bed and breakfast I was staying in a couple of days ago when I visited the city as part of an overland trip from the south of France to Croatia.
The city lies in the northeastern part of Italy and is just a couple of kilometres away from the Slovenian border. Contrary to the rest of Italy, Trieste has been culturally more part of Central-Europe (Mitteleuropa) as it was until 1918 the seaport of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Between 1947 and 1953 it was even governed by the UN as the “Free territory of Trieste” after Italy’s defeat in WWII. Only in 1954 it became part of present-day Italy which explains why it still is considered as the outsider city of the peninsula.
Kavana Europa 