Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA TOURISM ONLINE
Tourist offices throughout the region fall under the regional FVG tourist organisation and share the
same website (
www.turismofvg.it
). The offices are helpful and stock excellent maps and information
for the entire region.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Trieste
POP 205,500
Trieste, as travel writer Jan Morris once opined, 'offers no unforgettable landmark, no uni-
versally familiar melody, no unmistakable cuisine', yet it's a city that enchants many, its
'prickly grace' inspiring a cultlike roll-call of writers, travellers, exiles and misfits. De-
votees come to think of its glistening belle époque cafes, dark congenial bars and even its
maddening bora wind as their own; its lack of intensive tourism can make this often feel
like it's true.
FVG CARD
This discount card (48 hour/72 hour/7 days €15/20/29) provides free admission to all civic museums;
free transport in Udine, Lignano and on the Udine-Cividale del Friuli train and free audio tours plus
numerous discounts in the region's shops, spas, beaches and parks. The cards are available from all
FVG tourist offices, some hotels and online.
Tumbling down to the Adriatic from a karstic plateau and almost entirely surrounded
by Slovenia, the city is physically isolated from the rest of the Italian peninsula. Its histor-
ical singularity is also no accident. From as long ago as the 1300s, Trieste has faced east,
becoming a free port under Austrian rule. The city blossomed under the 18th- and 19th-
century Habsburgs; Vienna's seaside salon was also a fluid borderland where Italian,
Slavic, Jewish, Germanic and even Greek culture intermingled.
