Borgo Teresiano

This is where Trieste became European. Mitteleuropean, to be precise. It was a well-considered urban gesture, a planning regulation before its time. The Borgo Teresiano was born in the eighteenth century at the behest of Maria Theresa of Austria. Orthogonal streets. A central canal. Elegant buildings. The Canal Grande reflects façades and sky. Churches of different faiths coexist a few metres apart. Different languages still intertwine today. Here you stroll without a precise destination. You enter historic shops. You observe architectural details that speak of commerce and openness. It is the neighbourhood that best tells the Mitteleuropean soul of the city. That innate tendency of hers to unite. To reshuffle the cards, as the bora wind does, then return to a perpetual equilibrium. Stabilised, rather than stable. Because the push toward movement has always been the other side of this respectable city.