We’d planned on doing none.

It was great to get back into our air-conditioned cabin, hit the shower, freshen up, get into clean gear for the evening, stick devices onto charge, make a cup of tea, and sit out on the balcony, admiring the views we had of Trieste while the sun started to set.

Naturally, it would’ve been even nicer to have something stronger than tea but P&O lag a long, long, long way behind Princess when it comes to cruising niceties like enjoying cocktails delivered to your room, preferring to stick to the old system of “Go get it yourself. What do you think we’re doing here!? Providing a service!?” that they’re now also introducing in some of their venues on board. We were feeling lazier than normal after our exertions and full day ashore so decided we’d make do and treat our taste buds to that special type of foul tea you only get from shipboard water and UHT semi-skinned milk.

The time for departure came, and the time for departure went, and still the ropes kept Azura connected to the port and the gangway remained open. From the arms-crossed stances of the bridge crew we could tell that they were waiting for people to return. Ships will wait if tours organised through them run late, if they can, and it’s touted as one of the reasons to book through the cruise line, but it does come at a premium cost, and more experienced cruisers will be able to make informed decisions on a port-by-port and tour-by-tour basis there. We spent the time enjoying the darkening sky, the interesting cloud formations, and how the light was bringing different aspects of Trieste’s skyline into view.

As it turned out, however, there was no tour group late back to the ship, but rather three passengers. Their cocky walk back and waves to people booing from the balconies suggested they were well aware they were late, they’d possibly just been drinking ashore somewhere, and they couldn’t have given less of a toss that they’d held the ship up or that they’d risked being left behind. Don’t be like these pricks. They got lucky that they were with P&O and possibly that there were no penalty fees for the ship had it not left on time; certain other lines with less-forgiving captains would have departed on schedule and left the selfish gits to make their own way to the next port, and we’re generally supportive of that approach.

So, a little later in the evening than planned, Azura finally cruised away from Trieste.

One of the reasons I stayed out on the balcony in the cooling evening air was to see how close Azura would pass to an interesting-looking vessel I’d spotted earlier in the day. It had looked like a sailing vessel but with a hull shape that seemed to suggest it was built for stealth. Naturally, that’s the sort of thing I wanted to get a better look at but with the sun having set my view was considerably dimmer than I’d hoped. The vessel turned out to be the Sailing Yacht A, formerly a Russian billionaire’s toy (with masts built in Portsmouth) but at the time, and still at the time of writing, seized by Italian authorities as part of international sanctions against cunty regimes that launch wars to hide their own failings from their populations. She looked lovely against the twilight and knowing that some Russian had lost her makes the image even more attractive now.

To finish this travelogue from Trieste, the traditional look at what we had for dinner on the cruise ship that night. It was all rather uninspiring and we ended up following this up with the purchase of a bottle of wine to take back to the room in order to read, watch TV, and pop out onto the balcony to look out for stars.

In the next post in this series we’ll be making another port call in Croatia when we explore Zadar.

Oh well, we thought, you can’t have everything; and thought no more of it.

Getting off the bus after our return from the excursion to see Lake Bled we started to head towards Azura, looking gorgeous in the Italian sunshine (a big change from the overcast conditions and drizzle that had been with us earlier in the day).

“Oh, if anyone’s not been to Trieste before,” said our guide as we were stepping off the bus, “then it’s well worth a look around. You’ve got a few hours until the ship leaves.”

“We thought it was quite far away,” we replied.

“It’s there,” the guide mentioned, pointing over our should and down the road. “There’s a public square right there, about a hundred metres away.”

Well, lesson learned there that it’s always worth checking an actual map at some point and maybe even opening your eyes and looking around, because, yes, we were a very short walk indeed from what would turn out to be lots of fantastic architecture, statuary, and historical ruins, not to forget loads of cafés and bars and just great views too. A very fortunate interaction with the guide otherwise there’s a good chance that we’d have followed the majority of the rest of the tour group back to the ship. As it was, I think six of us turned around and headed across the road to look at the city.

A minute or two later, we found ourselves in Unity of Italy Square (Piazza Unità d’Italia), considered to be Europe’s largest public square next to the sea – which sounds like one of those made-up categories just so you can be first in it – and occasionally the venue for music performances in addition to serving more political roles hosting world leaders.

Surrounding the square were impressive-looking buildings including City Hall but the only feature within it was a fountain. This was the Fountain of the Four Continents, constructed in the middle of the eighteenth century and showing off Trieste’s importance as a trading seaport by representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America with sculptures within the pool area of the structure, and representing four major rivers in the way water was delivered to the pool. The fountain has been affected by history, surviving an attempt to remove it entirely in 1920s, then actually being removed ahead of World War II so that Mussolini could use more of the space to compensate for this tiny fascist penis, being returned in 1970, being moved to its original (and current) location at the start of the new millennium, then becoming subject to attacks by small-minded vandals in more recent times.

Obviously, we didn’t have any plans about what we wanted to see and so to start with we picked a direction at random and started walking. This brought us past the opera house into Piazza Giuseppe Verdi initially then along to a statue of Gabriele D’annunzio. He was quite the character and well worth reading about on that link; suffice it to say that he was associated with decadence and occasionally occultism, and a poet, journalist, playwright, army officer in World War I, had argued in favour of Italy siding with France and the UK against Germany, became a fighter pilot, and was ennobled as the Prince of Montenevoso. We’d passed buildings of some unknown importance and grand architectural design on the way, including the Meridiana Interattiva set into the ground floor of the Palazzo della Borsa; this was a twelve-metre-long sundial marking used by ships to set their marine clocks when arriving at Trieste. We also came across another fountain, this to the Roman god Neptune, and as keen sea-goers it’s always nice to see something like that.

The Leopold Column commemorates a visit to the city of Trieste in 1660 by Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor.

We took a moment at this point to actually take a look at the map and see if there was anything we particularly wanted to see nearby now that we actually had a chance to look around Trieste.

“There appears to be an amphitheatre just around the corner from here,” I told my wife. As you might be able to tell, we like seeing amphitheatres when we travel.

“It’s not going to be like Chester, is it?” she asked. That had been surprisingly naff, to be fair.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

Trieste has been inhabited for several millennia, firstly by Illyrian tribes, then into the second century BCE becoming incorporated into the Roman Empire. Naturally, therefore, Roman ruins exist because the Romans built pretty well, and the amphitheatre we found ourselves in front of a couple of minutes later dates from very late in the first century CE, likely around the time of Trajan’s rule. The hilly landscape just back from the coastline acted as a natural support for the amphitheatre’s sloping seating.

After we’d admired the ruins for a short period we checked the map once again and spotted a tower and a castle relatively close by. However, while the map wanted to keep it a surprise, we could tell that this would involve some increase in elevation as our eyes could see buildings raised up from where we were in the direction we’d need to take; that hilly landscape I’d just mentioned. We are not particularly fit people anyway, but one of us also carries a long-standing injury that makes climbing up steps painful so this wasn’t a decision we took lightly, but we figured that we could take it at our own pace, rest often, and just see how we did.

The walk up was not particularly thrilling or enjoyable but we reasonably soon reached the Tor Cucherna, a medieval watchtower dating to the fourteenth century and positioned along the city walls that existed at that time. In 1719 Trieste became a free port and the city’s expansion that this required necessitated the destruction of almost all those fortifications, but the tower survived as it had found a use as a house. Fairly interesting history-wise but I wouldn’t say it’s something you should go out of your way to see.

Continuing upwards we reached the highest point where the Castello di San Giusto was located. With absolutely no research beforehand we hadn’t known what to expect and if it had looked small enough then we might have taken a look around, but we quickly realised there was a lot more here on this plateau overlooking Trieste and that to really do it justice we’d need to come back and dedicate more time to this spot. That’s what we intend to do if we’re ever on a cruise that makes a stop in this part of Italy in the future.

The castle was constructed over the course of a couple of hundred years from the middle of the fifteenth century onwards and many aspects of its design reflect whatever was typically regarded as the best defensive shape for the period in which it was being built. The rounded bastion comes from the Venetian period of the early sixteenth century while some straight-edged examples can be dated later in the century and into the next.

A monument to fallen soldiers stood at the end of a tree-lined space, itself next to ruins of a Roman forum beside the castle. Completing the sites of interest on this hill in Trieste was a medieval cathedral too, apparently known for mosaics and frescoes. This will definitely all be on our list to visit when we inevitably return to Trieste.

We decided we’d walked around enough for the day and made the decision to head back towards the ship. At least it would be mostly downhill, although in parts no less easy to negotiate than coming up for my wife. Everywhere we seemed to look there was something to catch the eye.

It wasn’t long before we were back in front of Azura, ready to take the weight off our feet, freshen up, and maybe treat ourselves to some refreshments. Looking around Trieste had been a bonus for us on this day and the perfect sort of one that makes you want to come back for more. You get a feel for a place, and Trieste really rates right up there in terms in favourite places in Italy just from the small amount of time we had in the city.

At the cruise terminal entrance we spotted a final statue on this day that had featured many of them. This was to Nazario Sauro, recognised as a hero in Italy for his actions in the navy during World War I.

In the next post in this Azura cruise travelogue series we’ll enjoy some time on the ship in the port waiting to leave Trieste.

It was a little overcast as Azura came into Trieste port early in the morning, adding a touch of coolness to the day that was a marked contrast to the one that had preceded it in Split, and a quick check of the weather forecast for the day’s excursion destinations indicated it was going to get cooler too, and likely damper.

Breakfast on the ship was an improvement on the days before but still poor. We boarded our bus not long after and headed off, quickly crossing the border with no checks required (thank you, EU (fuck you, UK)), and passed hilly areas, often passing through heavy downpours en route to Slovenia’s capital.

When we arrived in Ljubljana the rain, thankfully, hadn’t followed us. Our bus dropped us off at Kongresni Trg (Congress Square), an early nineteenth century plaza used for ceremonies and protests like all good squares. You might be wondering how to pronounce Trg but I’m afraid I’m not Welsh so have no real experience of saying words without vowels in them.

Baroque architecture featured very heavily in Ljubljana and I was immediately taken by the Ursuline church across the road from the square while the majority of people on our tour used the free public toilets situated in the square’s centre. The Ursulines are not lovers of bears if that’s what you’re thinking (I was); they are a monastic order of women who cloister themselves away from everyday life, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a fancy church.

Our visit to Ljubljana would incorporate a short tour with some free time to explore afterwards, as is common with many city visits. A question was raised by one of our fellow passengers about Ljubljana Castle which could be seen on a low hill overlooking the capital city: could we visit it? The response was that if someone were to set off right at that moment they would have enough time to touch its wall before needing to turn around and come back to the meeting place. So, no.

Once all those who’d needed to relieve themselves had done so our guide led us the short distance to the next square, Prešernov Trg, the main square of Ljubljana. The square is circular just to mess with the minds of literalists and geometrists.

A sculpture in the middle of the square depicts the poet Prešeren and some scenes from his works, and the most prominent of the buildings surrounding the square is the Franciscan Church of the Annunciation on account of its pink-toned façade. The square’s current design and a lot of the architecture surrounding it owes much to the redevelopment that took place in the wake of a destructive earthquake that hit Ljubljana in 1895 when elements of Art Nouveau became incorporated into the surviving Baroque parts of the city.

The river Ljubljanica runs through Ljubljana so the city is adorned with numerous bridges. We crossed the Triple Bridge as it connected with Prešernov Trg in order to reach the final location our tour guide wanted to show us.

The last of the squares we were to be shown was Mestni Trg (Town Square) where, in front of the Town Hall (the building with the flags in front of it above) there was the Robba Fountain or, more accurately, a copy of it. This twenty first century replica allows the original eighteenth century piece to be kept safe in the country’s National Gallery. The pool of the fountain is local limestone and the obelisk at its centre is local marble while the decorative elements are marble from northern Italy.

At this point we were told when and where we had to meet up again and we were left to have a wander around on our own. We initially had a walk along the banks of the Ljubljanica because if you know anything about us at all by now then you know how much we like the water. It did make for some lovely views even if the weather was overcast and seemed to threaten rain at any minute.

Our walk took us towards the Dragon Bridge because our guide had mentioned that this was an important symbol for Ljubljana, and the final spot of interest we passed before reaching it was beside Saint Nicholas’s Cathedral. The Baroque (naturally) building replaces an earlier Gothic church on the same site that itself replaced an earlier Romanesque one that (also naturally) burned down. Churches do that a lot.

Our time in Ljubljana was too limited to allow us to venture inside any of the churches we’d seen, but that’s pretty typical for any cruise tour, but what we’d seen of Slovenia’s capital city left us knowing that this was a place we’d love to come back to for a long weekend to do it justice.

Our wander around Ljubljana has been split into two parts because someone – and it might be me – got a little camera-happy around all the abstract pieces of public sculpture artwork in the city, so in the next part of this cruise travelogue series we’ll reach the Dragon Bridge and I’ll continue our walk through Ljubljana and show off some more of its sights before we depart for the second destination in Slovenia on this day ashore.