Italy-Trieste's historical coffee houses
31 images Created 4 Mar 2011
Italy - Trieste, a city of legendary literary cafes.
Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries the vibrant and cosmopolitan Trieste, part of the Habsburg Empire until 1918, provided the ideal environment in which artists and writers like James Joyce and Italo Svevo could meet in the city's coffee houses. Coffee houses in which till today time seems to have been suspended for over a century. Coffee drinking is an unforsakable ritual for the local people, who has his own vocabulary to describe the various ways of taking it: nero meaning Espresso, capo when a dash of milk is added. A tour of Trieste's literary cafes must necessary start in central square, the magnificent Piazza dell'Unità d'Italia. Here, on the ground floor of the Palazzo Stratti, since 1839 we find the Caffè degli Specchi, a veritable institution around the tables of which artists, writers, politicians and business men have sat for a coffee. Walking along the seafront promenade, we find the nearby Caffè Tommaseo. Opened in 1830 was a favourite haunt of those writers and artists who animated the Mitteleuropean Trieste. With its salons, embellished with classic furnishings and Thonet's legendary chairs, Caffè Tommaseo still conserves the appearance of a traditional Viennese cafe. James Joyce, the Irish novelist who lived in Trieste for over a decade, loved to pass his time at one of the tables of the Caffè Stella Polare. Joyce loved also the sweet delicacies prepared at the Pasticceria Pirona. The writer and philologist Claudio Magris, like many of his literary predecessors, has elected the Antico Caffè San Marco as his second home where it is not unusual to spot him at one of the little tables intent on writing.
Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries the vibrant and cosmopolitan Trieste, part of the Habsburg Empire until 1918, provided the ideal environment in which artists and writers like James Joyce and Italo Svevo could meet in the city's coffee houses. Coffee houses in which till today time seems to have been suspended for over a century. Coffee drinking is an unforsakable ritual for the local people, who has his own vocabulary to describe the various ways of taking it: nero meaning Espresso, capo when a dash of milk is added. A tour of Trieste's literary cafes must necessary start in central square, the magnificent Piazza dell'Unità d'Italia. Here, on the ground floor of the Palazzo Stratti, since 1839 we find the Caffè degli Specchi, a veritable institution around the tables of which artists, writers, politicians and business men have sat for a coffee. Walking along the seafront promenade, we find the nearby Caffè Tommaseo. Opened in 1830 was a favourite haunt of those writers and artists who animated the Mitteleuropean Trieste. With its salons, embellished with classic furnishings and Thonet's legendary chairs, Caffè Tommaseo still conserves the appearance of a traditional Viennese cafe. James Joyce, the Irish novelist who lived in Trieste for over a decade, loved to pass his time at one of the tables of the Caffè Stella Polare. Joyce loved also the sweet delicacies prepared at the Pasticceria Pirona. The writer and philologist Claudio Magris, like many of his literary predecessors, has elected the Antico Caffè San Marco as his second home where it is not unusual to spot him at one of the little tables intent on writing.
