Lonely Planet, the largest travel guidebook publisher in the world, recently published a list of “10 of the world’s unsung places” on theirwebsite. This list includes cities which usually don’t make it onto tourists’ must-see lists and are largely undiscovered for a variety of reasons, including geographical position and their proximity to more glamorous and well-known cities. Trieste, in Friuli Venezia Giulia, was the top city on the list, followed by Arras (France), Gujarat (India), Chóngqìng (China), Aberdeen (Scotland), Utrecht (The Netherlands), Meknès (Morocco), Helsinki (Finland), Jerez de la Frontera (Spain), and Takayama (Japan).
Described as a “cultural melting pot,” Trieste, added to the Italian peninsula in 1918, borders Slovenia and is situated on a spit of land thrust into the Adriatic Sea. The city has a distinct Central European atmosphere and the neoclassical architecture and Viennese-style cafés recall its past as the sole port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As Lonely Planet describes, Trieste “retains an enticing, elegiac sense of the past”. In addition, the city was the site where James Joyce began writing Ulysses, instead of in his native Dublin.
The city offers visitors a variety of sites to explore including Roman ruins, castles, churches and interesting museums. Trieste is also a convenient base for exploring the Miramare Castle, built in the 19th century and offering a 22-hectare cliff and seashore park, and for continuing on to Slovenia and Croatia.
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