1/7/20 -- WWII History and Trieste City Tour

We have a couple days in Trieste. We started the first day at an old rice processing factory that was turned into a  Nazi concentration and detainment camp during WWII. We probably never heard of it because only thousands of people were killed there instead of millions.

The outside of the factory looks unremarkable.

This shows the layout of the entire facility. There was a crematorium
here, but it was destroyed by the Nazis as the war ended.

This former warehouse was known as the Hall of Crosses. It 
originally had three floors, but its not clear if those were in
place while it was used as a camp.

 

Next, we took a tour though the city to the high point where there are the remains of a Roman Forum, an old church and a WWI memorial.

The central mosaics had an interesting sparkly
aspect to them.

 

Another version of a unusually adult looking
baby Jesus

Unfortunately, the camera did not capture the sparkle which
made this mosaic so stunning. I especially liked the dark background.

This was the third of the mosaics at the front of the church.

Outside, the Roman ruins were partially rebuilt, but badly.

A WWI memorial

Overlooking Trieste and (below) the harbor

We ended up in the old part of the city, near our ship. While in the old city, we saw a large sign urging the US and UK to come back and learned that in 1947, Trieste  had been promised it could become a free state outside of the control of either Italy or Yugoslavia and the US and UK were supposed to facilitate that. Alessandro arranged a meeting with a representative of the group for after lunch. We also got a chance to find some more chocolates before returning for lunch.

The symbol of Trieste

On our way back to the ship, we saw a whole slew of jellyfish

 

After lunch, we went with Alessandro to a very Viennese looking cafe for coffee.  Jim and  I had  hot chocolate which was almost thick enough to be molten fudge that we thinned out with a glass of whipped cream. TOTALLY yummy, but definitely met all our chocolate needs for the next day or three.

Coffee shop with lots of unused outdoor seating.

The THICK hot chocolate and the cream you
needed to add to make it drinkable. Good thing
we are averaging well over 10,000 steps a day!

Then we visited the political party supporting "The Free Territory of Trieste" and learned the history behind it and the legal battles they are fighting even now to make it happen.

The gentleman on the left explained the Free Trieste history.
The woman was primarily a translator but sometimes answered
questions on her own.

Trieste sunset

Back at the ship there were a few moments of panic when we realized Jim had forgotten our daypack at the Free Trieste meeting, but Alessandro was able to reach them and Jim retrieved it while I listened to another story about the WWII times and after and more inhumanity which does not bear repeating. After dinner, there was a "Beach Boy Band" of crew members. Jim went back to our room to rest/sleep because of his cold, and I went with him fully intending to attend the show, but got caught up in something and missed the whole thing. Too bad! It sounded like fun.