TRIESTE (Mon 22 June)

Called Peugeot this morning to make sure that they had our required papers. After several calls we managed to confirm that yes they did have them and we had a meeting place organized to pick them up. We headed to the airport as planned, then another phone call to sort out an alternative time due to our contact being delayed, then another to adjust the venue of the final face-to-face, and then a wait for arrival. It all seemed like something out of a spy novel, ‘I will be the woman with the red hair, in the pinstripe suit, with the New York Times under my left arm and a long stemmed red rose held tentatively between my teeth’. So two hours after we set out, including a 10 minute drive, we managed to have in our hands this precious piece of paper that prevented our entry into Croatia.

Then it was back on the road again. Not a lot to see, although the land here is considerably more arable then what we have been seeing. The weather did start to turn as we headed east. Gradually changing from the intensely hot that we have been experiencing to huge black clouds, thunder, lightening and by the time we got to Trieste, rain. Big fat drops.

Trieste is the most easterly point of Italy, and our check in point before crossing the border. Our first impressions of Trieste were favourable ones. It is the kind of place that you drive into and think ‘I’m going to like it here’, and we did. Of course our first priority when we got there was to find somewhere to sleep, as it was already 6:00pm. We drove to the first hotel on our list only to find that it was full and that parking was questionable. So we went to the central Piazza and the Tourist Office. From here it was good news all the way. They made a phone call and found a Bed and Breakfast for us at the right price that included both breakfast and parking. Not only that, it was fairly central and the owner was on her way and would show us where it was.

Maltina (at least that’s what we think she said her name was, so we’ll call her that) arrived and we drove to ‘Bed and Breakfast Giulia’, with Maltine sitting in the front seat giving us the “left, left, left”, “right, right, right”, and the “straight, straight, straight”. This is a fairly new place on the B&B map, with newly fitted out rooms. Very friendly and personable, which after a plethora of impersonal hotels, hostels and camping grounds, really is very refreshing. Somehow we managed to cross the linguistic no-mans-land of language barriers and managed to exchange family backgrounds and travels, and a few other necessaries as well. She has a 30 year old daughter who is (or has, not sure on that) studying English and Spanish languages, so there were a couple of translation phone calls required. There are things that we said that I had the feeling that she did the ‘smile and nod’ thing without understanding, and I think we probably did the same, but we managed to get by. We had a most excellent stay here, and would recommend this place to anyone. In a nice way she made us feel, if not family, definitely at home. It seems that since her daughters have left home, she has converted their rooms, into an income. But from what we interpreted, she will even rent out her and her husband’s own room if required. How about that for going the extra mile with hospitality. I wonder how he feels about that :-) Soon after we got there, she had to leave for work, but she seemed so concerned that we had everything that we needed and were comfortable, we thought that she would never leave and be late for work.

After settling in we went for a walk and dinner. During our stroll, we went to the nearby supermarket. Now these supermarkets are a real mishmash of allsorts. It’s a Foodtown, Briscoes, Whitcolls, LifePharmacy, Palmers, etc all in one store. Whilst in the queue I managed to entertain myself by looking at what other people bought (as you do). There was a young guy there with a flat pack box of a cupboard that held drawers for shoes. Who calls into the supermarket on the way home from work to buy shoe drawers? It wasn’t a matter of “I’ll get some pasta sauce and … Oh, I need one of those, and I mustn’t forget the tomatoes”, the shoe drawers was all that he was buying … it was a destination shopping moment, not an opportunity item. You really do have to wonder … shoe drawers?!!

This is a nice place. This eastern part of Italy has quite a different feel to it, it feels the least Italian of all the places that we have been. Don’t know if this is the eastern influence or the fact that this hasn’t always been a part of Italy. Definitely memorable and definitely worth a visit, and don’t forget to get yourself some shoe drawers.