Friday was rather quiet. Walked around, did some shopping but no buying, had a not great dinner at a Croatian beer joint. (Probably not an accurate description.)

Saturday, however, we sprung into action. First a second cappuccino in a historic Trieste coffee house. These coffee houses were the places where Joyce, Svevo, and others congregated. Then walked to the "Grand Canal" of Trieste. The canal is about 6 blocks long, built into the water's edge, in the 1800s to promote shipping at the Port of Trieste. (Trieste, as we have learned, was promoted and indeed had it's heyday, in the 1800s as a shipping and insurance center, shipping goods to and from middle Europe to the Mediterranean.) I have posted a picture as well as a picture of James Joyce, who spent some years here teaching English at a Berlitz school, writing Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners, and starting Ulysses, etc., and promoting the writing of his fellow writer, Italo Svevo.

Then we took a tram up a steep incline to the town of Opicina and walked around a little. Here we also took a picture of the obelisk, built by the local business interests to thank and commemorate the finishing of the road linking Vienna and Trieste. It is a pleasant spot with some nice walking trails.

Next, we took a bus to the Miremare Castle and related park. This castle is a small gem and the pictures I took do not do it justice. It is situated perhaps 10 miles north of the city center, on a piece of land that sticks out into the Adriatic Sea. It was built in the 1850s by Maximilian for his bride Charlotte, a Belgium princess. They occupied it for a very short time. Then Max and his princess went to become Emperor of Mexico. This did not work out so well and Max was killed in 1867 by Juarez. His wife lived until 1927 and died, insane, in Belgium.

We are gradually adjusting our schedule to dinner at 8PM. This evening we are at a pleasant nearby trattoria. Each of us had a pasta of some kind, and then carpaccio.