The coffee city of Trieste in Italy is delicious.

I took a bus from Venice and fell asleep under the pleasant and monotonous pastoral background of northern Italy. Two and a half hours later, I stood at the door of a three-story hotel in Trieste with my suitcase. "Trieste? What kind of shithole is this? " Before leaving, a friend asked. The same confusion and prejudice appeared in 1806, when the French writer Chateaubrion came here with a long sigh and said, "take one last breath of civilization and set foot in the wilderness." Indeed, when it comes to Italy, there are many reasons to miss it, but it won't fall on Trieste unless you've been here.

The city of coffee

The inn is located by the sea, pushing open the door of the terrace, the Adriatic sea breeze is blowing, the reef is standing, and the water is blue. However, if you naturally hope that there are still some beautiful, romantic and gentle feelings that belong to the seaside, I'm sorry, this really doesn't.

Although in terms of territory, Trieste belongs to hot Italy, but most of it is surrounded by Slavic countries: five miles from the city center you will reach Slovenia; ten miles to Croatia; and a day's drive to Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary. Trieste has been the territory of Austria-Hungary since the middle of the 19th century and was the third largest city of Austria-Hungary after Vienna and Prague.

After World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed and Trieste became a pearl in Italian boots. But under the prestigious names of Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan, the pearl is quiet and lonely. According to the results of a survey in 1999, about 70% of Italians did not know that there was such a city within the border. However, over the past decade, the city seems to have a bit of a high profile, with its most recent reputation coming from 2006, when it was named "the most livable city in Italy" on the grounds of mild climate, beautiful scenery, simple folkways and clean city appearance. But think about it: do the Italians who love food, opera, art, women, speak loudly, speak freely, and go wherever they go? do they really care about the simplicity of folkways and the cleanliness of the city? Trieste's honor is clearly international rather than Italian. As Ferrari, a dark-haired beauty from Rome, commented: "Trieste is lovely, but not Italian."

In June, Trieste is like a reserved lady in the 19th century, with sunshine, but only a little; clouds, but only a little; wind is a little; rain is a little; it is neither less nor less for you to wear more, nor without an umbrella. I'm sure if you ask for a kiss on the back of Triaster's hand, it's just a short finger.

Ferrari is a coffee fan. I came to Trieste a week earlier. I was sunbathing on the beach two days ago. I felt that the sun was not hot, so I ignored sunscreen. As a result, my shoulder was sunburnt. I caught a cold because of the light rain these two days. I think it's not worth taking an umbrella. At the open-air coffee table in Tomaso, a century-old coffee shop in the city center, Ferrari drank two cups of espresso Espresso in a row, sighed and said, "this city is so quiet." How I miss the noise of Rome. However, this city is a city of coffee. There is the first coffee university in the world. You must go there. "

Coffee University is not an official university, it is an institution set up by Italian coffee brand illy to study and impart coffee knowledge. Italian founded its famous coffee kingdom in Trieste in 1933, making the city located in the northeast corner of Italy a veritable coffee city. The streets and alleys are full of cafes, and there are several cafes with a hundred years of history alone. And this famous coffee university has attracted countless coffee fans to come from thousands of miles.

In order to accommodate me as a coffee rookie, Ferrari accompanied me to try a day-long coffee beginner course. The school is located in the coffee factory of Yili Company, and after visiting the roasting process of the coffee, we are taken into the classroom and the class begins.

The window is bright and clean, stepped desk, a computer, paper, pen, small microphone in front of everyone. When I went to college, I didn't have such advanced teaching equipment, and the teacher was so handsome. The teacher in class is the chief barista of Italian Coffee, a typical Italian handsome guy. So boring data and topics such as Arabia coffee beans, Robusta coffee beans, 7 grams of coffee powder or 50 coffee beans for a cup of Espresso are easily accepted in singing Italian. As a veteran coffee drinker, Ferrari easily made a leaf-shaped cream foam floating on the coffee in the final process of making her own coffee, which was praised by the handsome teacher. After a half-day course, rookies popularize knowledge and veterans gain favor, and the result is more satisfactory than expected.

Some cities are born with the aura of "philosophy". It has a long history, ill-fated fate, not lively, not entertaining, but there is plenty of atmosphere for you to ponder and think about. Such cities abound with writers, poets and thinkers. Trieste, an almost forgotten city, has produced more than 40 writers in the past hundred years alone. The most famous is James Joyce.

Joyce was born in Ireland, but the brightest part of his life was in Trieste. Since 1904, Joyce has lived in this city for more than ten years and completed his masterpiece Dubliners and Portrait of a Young Artist, and the original idea of the masterpiece Ulysses also originated here. However, if you have read Joyce's life records in Trieste, you may be able to guess Joyce's love and hate for a city.

The life of Joyce's family in Trieste can be said to be stretched and difficult. He makes a living by teaching English and working as a tutor, and is often driven all over the city by his landlord because he can't pay the rent. Trieste, where they had left, moved to Rome, but went and came back, just like everyone else, Joyce was unhappy in Trieste, but always wanted to come back when he left.

On a warm sunny afternoon, I searched the streets of downtown Trieste and finally found his bronze statue of Joyce by an old bridge. However, if it were not for the kindness of the locals, I am afraid I would have passed it as a "passer-by" among the countless statues in the city. The statue is not majestic, it is not an imaginary generation of literary giants sitting upright, but a crumpled, emaciated man in a crumpled old hat, a decadent posture, frowning, not so much as "thinking". It's more like "anxiety". I looked closely at the instructions at the bottom of the statue and was sure it was him, James Joyce, who was extremely tangled and deeply involved with the stream of consciousness. Looking back at Joyce's situation in Trieste, I have to say that the shape and modality of the statue are just right.

Take a stroll from Joyce's old bridge to Unification Square in the city center, coffee shops, restaurants, roadside stalls selling fruit and fashion stores selling Italian brands. You need the Italian around you and the signs of the pizzeria that pop up from time to time to remind yourself that this is Italy. Because the city has changed owners in history, the architectural style is very mixed, the elegance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire flashes in the street scene from time to time, and when you arrive at Unification Square, you will completely ignore that you are in Italy.

Unity Square is the largest square in Europe, with 19th-century neoclassical buildings with central European characteristics on three sides and the blue Adriatic Sea on one side. It was getting late, the lights were on, the sea breeze rushed to the square, and on the steps in front of the city hall sat handsome young men and beautiful women, looking at the visitors with incomparably calm eyes. Compared with city hall squares in other European cities, it is almost the quietest and most sophisticated one. You don't see happy people chatting over drinks, children chasing pigeons or seabirds, and of course there are no tramps, beggars, or even littered scraps of paper. It is like a place washed by water, all the noise in the boiling world is hot, joys and sorrows are washed away. You walk there, not excited, not surprised, brain empty, Joyce's stream of consciousness unwittingly caught you.

In the winter of Trieste, there will be a strong wind called "Brad wind". It is mid-June, but the night wind also has the coolness of the depths of the sea. It was here that 65 years ago, another master of literature stood by the sea, in front of him, "tugboats are scrambling to enter the harbor, steamers sizzling steam." There was a faint roar of the train in the distance, as if a band were still playing. I watched it all playing Puccini.

The long-abandoned buildings were drowsy in the sun, but the symbolist conical steeple was awake; the lonely angler was bending his back, gazing at the float in the water, while the fishing rod remained motionless. There is no wind, the flag is listless, the streetcar is bored. "this passage is from the British writer Jane Morris's masterpiece Trieste: the meaning of the nameless Land." this book is the only travel book I have found in the bookstore. The scene of "listlessness and boredom" was the first impression that Trieste brought to Morris. That year, 20-year-old Morris conceived an essay on homesickness, which is the tone of Trieste.

I left Trieste on the third day of my arrival and went to Venice. In the sea of people superimposed by the sigh Bridge camera, I thought of it again, the old alleys with the smell of coffee and Joyce standing alone at the head of the bridge. As a result, in an instant, Venice seemed to be caged in a low tone. "people who haven't been here may not even know where it is," Morris said. "people who have been here leave with a lot of worry."

This city, if you have been here, will be captured by its homesickness.