Sights in Trieste
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Museo Revoltella
Baron Pasquale Revoltella (1795–1869) would be pleased. He not only left his three-storey neo-Renaissance mansion to Trieste, but also his private collection of then-contemporary art. With this and a hefty financial bequest from Revoltella, the Museo Revoltella was born in 1872. The city expanded the collection into two neighbouring buildings. Revoltella’s house retains the atmosphere and furnishings of the baron’s time. The baron’s flamboyant taste fills the gaudy rooms, with their chandeliers, gilded plaster, silk wallpaper and gold curtains. His collection of 19th-century Italian paintings and marble sculptures of nudes is on show here. The modern section, Palazzo …
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Castello di San Giusto
Often overlooked in favour of Trieste’s emblematic Castello di Miramare, the sturdy 15th-century Castello di San Giusto sits atop a strategic hill where it was built by Trieste’s Venetian rulers over older fortifications. The castle contains a recently renovated museum and armoury with a raft of exhibits, including suits of armour and other weapons. You can also wander around the walls and pop into the Lapidario Tergestino with its modest jumble of statuary and architectural fragments.
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Grotta Gigante
The Grotta Gigante is near Villa Opicina, 5km northeast of Trieste. At 107m high, 280m long and 65m wide, the ‘giant grotto’ is one of the continent’s largest accessible caves – St Peter’s Basilica in Rome could fit inside. Nearly 500 steps lead you down into its eerily lit vault replete with stunning stalagmites. Take bus 42 from Piazza Oberdan, or tram 2 – the scenic choice that has covered the 5.2km journey since 1902 – to Villa Opicina, then bus 42 to the cave.
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Risiera di San Sabba
The San Sabba rice-husking plant sounds like a harmless location, but in 1944 the Germans, with local Fascist help, built a crematorium here and turned it into Italy’s only extermination camp. It is believed 20,000 people perished here, including 5000 of Trieste’s 6000 Jews. Yugoslav partisans closed it when they liberated the city in 1945, and 20 years later it became a national monument and museum. Take bus 8 from the train station.
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Civico Museo Teatrale Carlo Schmidl
At the south edge of Borgo Teresiano, take time for the Civico Museo Teatrale Carlo Schmidl, housed in the grand Palazzo Gopcevich. It retraces the history of theatre and music in Trieste to the 18th century, with an engaging collection of historical instruments on the 1st and 2nd floors and a collection of signatures of such greats as Gioacchino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini.
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Biblioteca Civica
Three small museums call the Biblioteca Civica home. The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale displays a musty array of stuffed animals and bones. Literature fans can poke about documents and other memorabilia linked to two great 20th-century novelists in the Museo Joyce and the adjacent Museo Svevo. James Joyce wrote some of his masterpieces in Trieste, and lugubrious local boy Italo Svevo wrote all of his in the city.
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Civico Museo di Storia ed Arte ed Orto Lapidario
The Civico Museo di Storia ed Arte ed Orto Lapidario unites a host of mostly Roman antiquities unearthed in and around Trieste and Aquileia. The more delicate items of Roman, Greek, Egyptian and prehistoric art and artefacts are spread over two floors, while the Orto Lapidario (Stone Garden) is a potluck assembly of more weather-resistant stone finds. Take bus 24 from the train station.
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Basilica di San Giusto
The Basilica di San Giusto, completed in 1400, is the synthesis of two earlier Christian basilicas in a blend of the Ravenna and Byzantine styles. The interior contains 13th-century frescoes and a mosaic from the same period depicting St Justus, the town’s patron saint. The Virgin and Child and the Apostles appear on another wonderfully preserved 12th-century mosaic.
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Teatro Romano
Smack-bang in the middle of the modern city, this remarkably well-preserved 2000-year-old Roman theatre was discovered during excavation for public works in 1938. Built into the hillside, with a capacity of up to 6000 people, it would have originally sat directly on the shore facing out to sea, but silting has moved the shoreline.
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Acquario Marino
Barely 100m from Piazza Venezia stands the waterfront Acquario Marino, where you can view some of the denizens of the Adriatic deep, as well as tropical fish. The former fish market (1913), which fills the southern half of the building, is being developed as a future exhibition space.
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Lapidario Tergestino
With commanding views across city and sea, the Colle di San Giusto is topped by a sturdy 15th-century castello, largely built over earlier fortifications by the city's Venetian rulers. Wander around the walls and pop into the Lapidario Tergestino with its modest jumble of statuary and architectural fragments.
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Civico Museo Sartorio
The Civico Museo Sartorio offers a varied collection of art, applied arts and jewellery. During restoration work, beautiful ceiling frescoes, some dating to the late 18th century, were uncovered, along with remains of the mosaic floor of a Roman house (domus).
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Castello di Miramare
The Castello di Miramare is a curious place, a fanciful neo-Gothic remnant of the hyperactive imagination of Archduke Maximilian of Austria who deserted Trieste almost as quickly as he adopted it in 1864 to take up the obsolete crown of Mexico.
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Museo Civico di Storia Naturale
The Museo Civico di Storia Naturale displays a musty array of stuffed animals and bones. Literature fans can poke about documents and other memorabilia linked to two great 20th-century novelists in the Museo Joyce & Svevo.
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Canal Grande
Austrian town planners, at the behest of Empress Maria Theresa, designed much of the elegant city centre area north of Corso Italia in the 18th century. The pretty Canal Grande marks the northern end of the harbour.
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Museo della Comunità Ebraica Carlo e Vera Wagner
Memories of Trieste’s Jewish heritage are preserved at the Museo della Comunità Ebraica Carlo e Vera Wagner, which has a small exhibition of liturgical items, textiles, documents and photographs.
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Museo d’Arte Orientale
The Museo d’Arte Orientale, in an 18th-century town house, contains an eclectic collection of Chinese porcelain and Japanese prints, drawings, musical instruments and weaponry.
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Roman Theatre
Behind Piazza dell’Unità d’Italia rise remains of the Roman theatre, which was built between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. Concerts are held here occasionally during summer.
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Synagogue
To the northeast of Museo della Comunità Ebraica Carlo e Vera Wagner lies Trieste’s huge synagogue, one of the biggest in Italy (and heavily damaged during WWII).
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Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore
The baroque Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore, is a cavernous church whose main point of interest is the tiny painting by Sassoferrato of the Madonna della salute.
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Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Taumaturgo
The east end of Piazza San Antonio Nuovo is dominated by the enormous neoclassical Catholic Chiesa di Sant'Antonio Taumaturgo (1842).
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Arco di Riccardo
The Arco di Riccardo is an earlier Roman remnant, one of the old town gateways, dating from 33 BC.
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Chiesa di Santo Spiridione
The striking Serbian Orthodox Chiesa di Santo Spiridione was completed in 1868 and sports glittering mosaics.
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Museo Joyce & Svevo
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