Jan Morris, in Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, proclaims: "I prefer a civic blur to a sight-seeing tour."

Well, she'd have been proud of us yesterday...

Set free from the hectic travel schedules of the last few days, and fired up by the brilliant blue sky and bright sunshine, we just ran amok... To try to give some structure to the day, we were supposed to be following a James Joyce trail (the Irish author was associated with Trieste from 1904 to 1920). But we kept shooting off at tangents like dogs after rabbits.

By the end of the day, we'd done nothing thoroughly or consistently, but had totally fallen in love with Trieste...

Some snippets from our Day 4 wanderings:
















Jan Morris comments: "In almost everything I read about this city, by writers down the centuries, melancholy is evoked..."

I was thinking yesterday that I really don't get melancholy vibes here... It all seems buzzy and upbeat; and the people we deal with are pleasant and cheerful.

But there is a slightly disconcerting aura of non-functionality... There's the tram, for example, which used to take folks up to Opicina. It went out of service seven years ago, and attempts to revive it last year came to grief when there was an accident. The recommencement of operations is now postponed indefinitely.

It sits right outside our flat, a little forlorn:



The Joyce Museum is closed at the moment. Likewise the Railway Museum. And the Tourist Information Centre is out of action because the premises were flooded months ago.

I guess these are just unlucky coincidences.

Then today, Day 5, it rained...

In fact today was probably the wettest day we've had since we set out on this trip. Quite heavy rain. Absolutely unremitting. And all the ledges and balconies and other picturesque sticky-out-bits that you so admire from a photographic point of view turn out to be gargoyle-like in their propensity to pour water all over you...

But even so, even when you abandon your plans half-way through because you're so fed up with being rained on, Trieste has ways of keeping your spirits up.

One is its cafes. Yesterday, we'd had coffee and a sweet treat at one of the ubiquitous little bakeries. Excellent: Good quality, and a pleasantly low price.

Today, we decided to try one of the famous ones: Caffe San Marco. Joyce is among the many well-known figures who are said to have hung out there back in the day.





Given it's such a resonant place, we thought the price was very reasonable.

The rain continued... So we headed next for the Museum of the Jewish Community of Trieste. Which is currently under armed guard (as was the Synagogue in the old Ghetto area of Venice).

There's a lot here that's very sobering. So it can't help but be melancholic. Trieste's Jewish community is now tiny, and even when it was much bigger, life was rarely straightforward. The museum doesn't try to dish up a simple story of a monolithic group of Jews on one side and a hostile world on the other. The Jews here were often divided. Some, for example, supported the Habsburgs, some the Italian cause; some were Zionists, others assimilationists; some supported the fascists, not appreciating, presumably, the racial subtext behind their doctrine; and when harsh regulations were introduced to restrict the Jewish population, some community leaders welcomed the chance to exert a greater measure of control. Nothing's ever easy. We all have choices to make.

The museum presents many harrowing stories of lives lost during the Holocaust. But there's also emphasis on the survivors, and on the extraordinary creativity that has bubbled out of Trieste's Jewish community over the years.

A few snippets for the sake of remembrance:








The museum building itself has a very interesting story: "From the end of the eighteenth century to the late nineteenth century, Via del Monte 5-7 had been the Jewish hospital. From the beginning of the twentieth century it was used to host the thousands of refugees fleeing Tsarist anti-Semitism and, later, Nazism. These refugees left from the port of Trieste to travel to British Palestine or the Americas. The building also housed the Jewish Agency, which assisted Jewish emigrants leaving for Eretz Israel. In recognition of its role during the two World Wars, the city has earned the epithet of Shaar Zion, Gateway to Zion."



On the first floor, I encountered loads more writers and artists that I knew nothing about... I intend to follow up as many as I can, and I hope they will make an appearance on The Velvet Cushion in due course.

But there's one image I can't leave out, because it is so haunting:


Finally, on the top floor, we were introduced to the work of Dvora Barzilai. She has several distinct styles. I particularly liked the work that incorporates letters:



But I also liked her softer paintings, which contrasted so well with the monumental look of the textual pieces:




Outside are some more of the "stumbling stones" we first encountered in Bratislava:


The rain, meanwhile, had NOT let up:


So we headed home.





And the last treat of the day was putizza, a fantastically nutty rolled pastry that is a Trieste speciality:


We've had an amazing couple of days here. I'm glad we still have two to come. It's definitely the kind of place I could imagine spending much, much more time...