Hotels in Trieste, Italy

A little about Trieste...

Trieste is a city and port in northeastern Italy right on the border with Slovenia. Trieste is located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste on the Adriatic Sea. With a population of 207,069 (2001) it is the capital of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trieste province. Today, Trieste is a border town. The population is an ethnic mix of the neighboring regions; The dominant local Venetian dialect of Trieste is called Triestine. Places of tourist interest in Trieste include numerous examples of Art Nouveau and neoclassical architecture from its Austrian past, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, the International School for Advanced Studies and Trieste University.

Transport:
Rail Transport - Passenger rail service to Trieste now largely consists largely of trains to Venice, which make connection with services to Rome and Milan at Mestre, with a few through trains to Rome and Milan. These trains reach Centrale station via a line around the head of the Gulf of Trieste which connects with the Sudbahn's northerly loop. International through services between Italy and Slovenia (and places beyond) now bypass Trieste itself, calling instead at Villa Opicina.

Local public transport in Trieste is operated by Trieste Transporti, which operates a network of some 60 bus routes and two boat services. They also operate the Opicina Tramway, a unique hybrid tramway and funicular railway that provides a more direct connection between the city centre and Villa Opicina.

Main Sights:
Castle of Miramare
The Castle was built from 1856 to 1860 to a design by Carl Junker on the orders of Archduke Maximilian. The Castle gardens provide a setting of outstanding beauty with a variety of trees, chosen by and planted on the orders of Maximilian, that today make a remarkable collection. Features of particular attraction in the gardens include two ponds, one noted for its swans and the other for lotus flowers, the Castle annexe ("Castelletto"), a nearby a bronze statue of Maximilian, and a small chapel in which is kept a cross made from the remains of the "Novara", the flagship on which Maximilian, brother of Emperor Franz Josef, set sail to become Emperor of Mexico.

Castle of San Giusto
Designed on the remains of previous castles on the site, it took almost two centuries to build. The stages of the development of the Castle's defensive structures are marked by the central part built under Frederick III (1470-1), the round Venetian bastion (1508-9), the Hoyos-Lalio bastion and the Pomis, or "Bastione fiorito" dated 1630. The Castle - in which several rooms, including the Sala Caprin, are open to the public - houses a Museum displaying historical weapons and is regularly used for the staging of exhibitions, events and, in the summer, open-air shows. A walk on the Castle ramparts and bastions gives a complete panorama of the city of Trieste, its hills and the sea.

Caves: In the whole Trieste province there are 10 speleological groups (24 in Friuli-Venezia Giulia). The Trieste plateau (Altopiano Triestino), called Kras or the Carso and covering an area of roughly 200 km² within Italy has approximately 1500 caves of various sizes (67 are more than 99 m deep). Among the most famous are the Grotta Gigante, the largest tourist cave in the world, with a single cavity large enough to contain St Peter's in Rome, and the Cave of Trebiciano (350 m deep) at the bottom of which flows the Timavo River. This river dives underground at Škocjan Caves in Slovenia (they are on UNESCO list) and flows about 30 km before emerging about 1 km from the sea in a series of springs near Duino reputed by the Romans to be an entrance to Hades.