Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere
Writer Jan Morris came before me, and showed me where to go
Trieste has always existed slightly out of focus.
Even when you arrive with intention, the city sits quietly in the fold of the map, as Jan Morris writes in Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere — also they call it “the capital of nowhere” — thus resisting being fully grasped. It is not quite Italian in the way Florence performs Italy, not fully Central European in the way Vienna claims its heritage, not entirely Balkan despite the sharpness in its edges. Trieste occupies the space where definitions soften. It is a city that has learned to live with not belonging at all.
