San Giacomo Revisited

Art & Culture

15 September 2019

Art & Culture

San Giacomo Revisited

When I moved to Trieste about three years ago, I thought “Wow, what a place to live!”
I loved the stillness of the sea, coffee smell everywhere and even the occasional bursts of bora. I started my discovery from Città Vecchia but after a while I was ready to move on to new neighborhoods, or “rioni” as they say in Italian. So I wandered off to San Giacomo!

Standing proud on top of one of Trieste’s hills, it’s a city within a city. It gives you a vibe of being completely independent from the rest of Trieste.
Here you’ve got all you need: cafés, bars, osterie, shops, supermarkets and even cinema, so it’s no wonder some locals never really come down to the city center. Start your exploration of this neighborhood from the grand piazza with a parochial church and go ahead and get yourself that capo in b (a small cappuccino served in a glass) at the renowned bar pasticceria Zenzero and Canella (they recently won an award for the best pastry called “bora”- a must try!).

Afterwards, take a walk down Via del Vento (yes, the “windy street”) where bora is said to feel most intensely which made this street the muse of many a poet for centuries. And of course, when in San Giacomo, do like the locals do, so after lunch at one of the local osterie, pick up a copy of Piccolo at the newspaper kiosk and sit down in the piazza while enjoying the sounds of Trieste’s dialect spoken from every corner, enriched by a variety of other languages.

And as with many places that are hard to decipher at first, you will need to revisit San Giacomo a few more times to understand just how unique this rione really is.

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Maria Kochetkova

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Maria is a linguist, writer, social entrepreneur and an Italian culture enthusiast. She has been sharing her love for la dolce vita Triestina between capo-in-b and gelato breaks since the summer of 2016.