From Venice by train to Trieste, an important port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of World War I, when it became part of Italy.

"Almost surrounded by Slovenia and the Adriatic, the city feels isolated and peripheral to the rest of the Italian peninsula. a nowhere land that haslong served asan escape hatch for exiles, misfits and writers......." - Guidebook

James Joyce and Sigmund Freud came to Trieste to think and write. Two of Verdi's operas were premiered in Trieste. The city sits at the foot of steep hills rising from a huge seafront and an enormous piazza surrounded by grand Italianate buildings.