Trieste, Istria, and Venice

At the end of August, we set off for Trieste. This is a great city to visit: relatively untouristed, it is home to: (i) great Austro-Hungarian architecture: (ii) for most of 1904-1914, and again after WW1, James Joyce, who (I'm told) wrote A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and most of Dubliners there; (iii) our friend Michael Siegal, who kindly put up for four nights (one night longer thanks to my miscalculation of dates...)

During the days we travelled down the coast of Istria to Koper in Slovenia and Porec and Motovun in Northern Croatia. The children loved paddling, swimming, being out in real sunshine. The food was generally very good, especially in Croatia: in Motovun we had pasta with fresh white truffles -- actually, Sean had most of this, after ordering plain risotto; later, at Umag, there were super grilled squid.

After our time in Trieste, we travelled back up to a campsite near Venice: again, this worked out brilliantly, including our day-trip into Venice, and the visit to the pigeons in St. Marks' square, which Sean delighted in, and Julian survived (in the absence of shoes and/or handwashing afterwards)

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Devenish

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