First post from Trieste

Our first stop on this summer’s adventure is Trieste, Italy at the Northeast point of the Adriatic Sea. Trieste has all the best qualities of Italian cities — accessible on foot, the best tomatoes in the world, marvelous mozzarella, fabulous fish and seafood that tastes like it came out of the sea yesterday. Then there’s the gelate (multi-flavoured Italian ice cream in its various forms — yogurt, sorbet and rich cream) at every corner.

Our hotel, Alabarda, two star, is friendly and has 30 minutes of free Wifi from the room. This is the first time we've taken a laptop. It’s nice to not have to find the local Internet café, which is usually smelly and crowded with teens. We bought a $10 adaptor, which simply attaches to the plug, which then goes into the wall. I found out from a nice man at Bureau en Gros that more expensive converters are unnecessary for laptops, which already have the ability to run on 110 or 220 volts.

We arrived on a Saturday and spent most of the day catching up on sleep and walking the streets that run around the Grand Canal. We’ve had three meals so far and the average bill is about 30 Euro for two including one entrée, ¼ liter of wine and sparkling water. The service is always friendly and accommodating.

The first afternoon, I walked across the street to the Supermercado and purchased some succulent peaches, nectarines, tomatoes, and cheese, as well as a perfectly-sized orange melon resembling a cantaloupe but tasting like the real thing. This morning we enjoyed a wonderful café latte at one of the spots on the canal. Fancy coffees are the only thing cheaper than in Montreal, apart from the wine and the gelate.

The music in the bars and restaurants is awful — loud and aggressive. We asked the waitress tonight to change it and she happily obliged.

The hotel gives out a special menu for this restaurant, two streets away (Ristorante Pizzeria O-Scugnizzo). For 20 Euro you get Primi (first course) which is pasta, Secondi (second course) which is fish, Contorni (salad or grilled veggies), and Bevanda (beverage) — either mineral water or ¼ liter of wine or beer. We weren’t that hungry or willing to splurge yet again so we asked if we could share. We could and did! Irwin had the spaghetti with fresh mussels and clams (in the shell too) and I had the Secondi of grilled squid. After three meals here, one could say the food is exquisitely prepared and fresh. So fresh! The olive oil is better than anything I’ve tasted in Montreal.

Today we visited the port and decided not to take the cruise going to the Greek Islands for one week. Why be packed in like the grilled sardines I had for lunch listening to loudspeakers and unable to stay in a place longer than a few hours? For a minute I wanted to try it just once. But Irwin quickly nixed the idea and instead we boarded a chug-a-lug boat to Muggia, a half-hour away (6 Euro return) and toured a lovely little port town, ate more gelate and had more delicious coffees. You get the picture!

What a beautiful little town! We would have inquired about the apartments for sale at 140,000 Euro if it hadn’t been a Sunday.

Now that we’re back in Italy, we remember why it’s one of our favorite countries in the world!

Tomorrow we want to look into ferries going to Croatia. Our intention this time is not to miss Sarajevo. If we can, we’ll take a ferry to Zadar on the coast of Croatia, and then move on to Split and maybe the island of Hvar before making our way to Sarajevo by bus or train! We like not knowing exactly where we’re going. The cruise wouldn’t have been our cup of coffee!