Trieste, Italy – Plan C | City by the sea bordering Slovenia and Croatia
September 5, 2022 Leave a comment
I purchased the 9 € German countrywide regional train ticket (which I found out about in Portugal), using it the last day it was available – August 31st. Traveling with a backpack on my back, another on my chest, pulling a bag on wheels (with another canvas bag balanced on it in which my sleeping bag was obscured) with my left hand and walking my bicycle with the right hand. I wound up having to make about 8 regional train exchanges (then another Euro train, and another Italian train), rushing and successfully getting to the next platform at each station (with the help of a German student (about to study about sharks in Rostock to inform people that they are not dangerous creatures) twice and another time by an Iranian women (living in Norway coming to visit her Iranian boyfriend in Munich) with literally no minutes to spare. I stood most of the day next to my bicycle and luggage, to the border of Austria – Kufstein – then opting to go further to Innsbruck.
In Innsbruck, I had to wait till the next morning to book a train to Verona, where I bought a beer to go as the bar was closing, then met and hung out with 3 young Ukrainian guys, smart and fun. One a pro (or amateur) tennis player. Then slept outside in an inner courtyard (where we had hung out and I went back to after we parted) because it was a 2nd hinterhof.
There were a lot of communicative people during more standing room only on this Euro line, where a lawyer and priest informed me that most of these seats were reserved, which is why myself and a handful of others were standing. This was a pleasant ride with lots of conversations. The lawyer/priest informed me that a tunnel is being built for the highway, to transport trucks more efficiently and reduce pollution.
I booked the morning train to Verona, deciding to spend more € for the European Rail train ~ and it turned out the regional trains were not operating, people were instead transported by bus, in which case I would have been stuck with a train ticket and no capability of bringing my bicycle.
I then arrived in Verona, deciding to stay there rather than zipping by, because of the mentioned architecture and roman amphitheater. Oh my gosh, I was just purchasing my second cappuccino here at this hostel in Trieste, Italy (several days after leaving Verona), when a young guy asks me, did you ever find a place to sleep that night in Verona? It took me a half a minute. Verona? Sleep? How, what? Oh yeah, this was the only person who was a witness, coming up the 4 flights of stairs to the entry way to a hostel that had very little presence and no pleasant ambience, with one man there, a rude guy who was almost ushering me out after showing him that indeed I had paid for the room via booking dot com, but it hadn’t registered on his end. This guy, Sergie (Irish guy with Spanish father) moments ago here in Trieste, is on a similar trajectory from Verona, passing through Trieste on his way to Slovenia.
The first hostel ‘Safestay Lisbon’ was fantastic, and this hostel in Trieste, equally fantastic with a great location, 24/7 staff, luggage room, bar, events, courtyard, pleasant and helpful staff ‘Hotello Hostel’ in Trieste.
So I had to think a bit, to remember that night, where an elderly native Triestian woman whose path I crossed twice trying to get to this hostel (who helped me to get there asking a young guy and then using her bus pass and telling the driver where to let me off before stepping off the bus). All the other hostels were booked and this was the last option. After sitting outside in their grass to eat the first time in 24 hours, and considering camping in their tiny yard obscured, until my cover was blown by a woman and her dog talking to me and a pock-faced man leaning out the window saying in Italian i can’t sleep there ( my sleeping bag already unrolled), I walked back to the center, energized.
I decided to walk the other way from fountains in the plaza before the train station. The wheels were weighted down from the luggage bulk. I was half way dragging it. Left the bicycle locked before the station among other bicycles. Decided against the first grassy park, too exposed (human predators). Asked, an old man who pointed and said, hotel that way. Certainly not one I could afford. Walked through a gated off area, then turned around when I saw a path, where surely more people would be coming from that area and see me and my luggage clearly. I was going to cross the street to a raised patch of grasses, and opted to walk through an archway to find a better place to cross the busy street. Turns out this was in fact part of the building of the luxurious hotel.
I spotted a wild cat jumping up onto a wall and this strip of green beyond it. The cat is the one who showed me the safe and more obscured place to lay down my sleeping bag. I can’t believe that this young man Sergie from Ireland moments ago asked me where I slept that night in Verona. Crazy the path of travelers, sometimes intercepting one another at hostels.
I don’t even know the name of the luxury hotel that hosted my green strip, but was glad that it did. I woke up to a slight drizzle, that never became rain, must have been a passing cloud. Then in the morning, two women walking by as I was sitting up, one lifting her arm to admire her fancy new handbag, surely an expensive brand…I laughed at the juxtaposition.
Energized with sleep, I felt compelled to walk with the luggage to the old town of Verona to see the highlights of the town, and managed to do it.
I have two video vignettes in which a very fatigued and blood-shot eyed Carol describes the voracious appetites of Italians for fashion. The street leading from the Roman amphitheater/ coliseum
to the famous balcony of Juliet, in Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet,
is lined with classy, expensive boutiques.
Found a café to plug in my iPad, with fabulous pizza.
Then as I was arriving on the train to Trieste, an Italian woman sitting adjacent to me looked up on her phone the name and address of a hostel I had recognized from my search in Verona, but hadn’t yet booked. I walked there from the train station and there were VACANCIES. i purchased a cheap tiny padlock from the hostel (which the key didn’t open the 2nd time, and now have waited over the weekend after not being able to open it for a day and a half) to go buy a properly functioning padlock). Yes, more days wearing the same clothes…fine. There’s a more than adequately large storage locker under my bed. I’ve instead been riding around the waterfront and downtown and attending the Maker’s Faire (science and technology interactive event), I went riding off in the fading dusk on my bicycle Friday evening, musicians everywhere, realizing how incredibly beautiful this city is, bordering Croatia and Slovenia.
Finally have accommodations. Bicycled across the waterfront to buy beer at LIDL packed with parked, rocking sail boats, and found a fantastic and humorous swing band about to start, decided to stay outside . This place was soon packed with locals, some great swing dancers on the dance floor where I stayed all night smiling, finding the town unbelievably beautiful. I believe I chose this town not only because it’s by water, but because the 19 years i lived in San Francisco, i ritually went to Café Trieste in the Italian district.
The first day waking up at the hostel I met an Italian woman Francesca in my same room after waking up. She informed me about this Maker’s Faire (science and technology mainstream event), happening that day and the next. Open to the public and free. I went, feeling super excited and relieved. Very much on the same page, she informed me about many things (she has her own creative coop workspace in Firenze Florence).
She also informed me about Franco Basaglia, a leader in also a labor movement. There was going to be a manifestation/demonstration that day, Saturday September 3, by people in Trieste protesting the approaching abrupt closing of a factory producing engines for ships (I believe).
I learned yesterday as I talked to more people (which I do regularly, approaching people and conversing with strangers, rather than walking around looking down at a phone), conversing with two Austrian couples where I had stopped to dance to a band the second night (1st person dancing alone before the stage which then became a crowded dance floor) after dancing with an Austrian man. I learned that Trieste had been a part of Austria, the Austrian Hungarian empire. One of the men mentioned the empire in which the sun never sets. I learned of the Hapsburg dynasty from the movie Dr. Zhivago.
I’ve been researching several new possibilities about extending a stay here in Trieste, Italy. I attended more hours of the Maker’s Faire, after spending hours writing and researching VISA related stuff, since a human being is not allowed to merely exist on the planet, but has to heed the demands of borders and national regions, something non-existent within the earth itself. I learned of the School of music in Trieste – Tartini Conservatory of Music – talking to a guy in his booth, as I listened to the explanation of his design, took notes and learned of this school of specifically ELECTRONIC music. I have also spent years developing this craft, rather than having babies, with two different programs; Propellerhead Reason making beats piggybacked onto Ableton Live. I spoke with one of the scientists in the ICTP (International center for Theoretical Physics) tent, to find out about who to contact for an informational interview. Could be the physicists need someone with creative and writing skills to communicate what they work on to the public. I may be able to finagle a way to extend a VISA by virtue of studying Italian and music, and working here. Always looking at options and alternatives – of which Berlin does not fade into the background – but remains a viable alternative ~ more is happening there. I like Europe, because there are places everywhere to hang out in public and sit, stand, dance, listen to music and basically watch and interact with people or watch sunsets….catering to quality of life and interaction, rather than insulated in their own cars and nose to the grindstone, with the sole emphasis of making more money to buy more things. The USA has exported that poison. However, I guess various cultures (particularly Italy) embrace style and fashion as a high priority and status symbol. I’m super turned off by it. And feel sad to see people of poorer countries try so hard to wear the cool shoes or sport the handbag, thinking that this is ‘making it’ and making them more desirable. I dance and interact with smiles and conversation, rather than material acquisition, as the main emphasis and focus in life.
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