Huddled up against the border with Slovenia, the city of Trieste is a Balkan city as much as an Italian one - in fact for a large part of its history this border town was part of Austria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, only moving to Italy in 1920, as one of the spoils of the First World War. It had originally been built by Austria was its main port on the Adriatic.
Liberated from the Nazis by Tito's Yugoslav partisans at the end of World War II, the city was still argued over by Yugoslavia and Italy until the mid 1970s. Here, the Italian tongue competes with the local Venetian dialect of Triestine, while Slovene is widely spoken and you may also hear German and Hungarian.
For a long time, Trieste was on the edge of things, a faded beauty marooned against the Iron Curtain. But the thawing of the Cold War, and Slovenia's entry into the EU have slowly changed things, with a noticeable increase in cross-border traffic and trade. Its battered grandeur has long made it popular with writers - James Joyce lived and wrote here, as did Umberto Saba and Italo Svevo. The city has been tidied up revealing much of its Viennese beauty, and it has become an increasingly popular tourist destination. There are the beaches on the Adriatic to the front, the white limestone cliffs to the rear, and the plateau of the Carso stretching inland.
To the left you'll find a selection of Trieste hotels, just to whet your appetite.
See also Trieste hotels (full listings) and our Trieste hotel map.
