Trieste: Of Tumultuous Storms and Tasty Icecream

Our next stop was in the town of Trieste, which funnily enough was over the border of Slovenia and into a geographically isolated territory of Italy. We were rather excited to hear the Italian language again and I was holding out for delicious pizza and gelato. Unfortunately the bad weather we had been expecting hit and we had to explore the city from the relative safety of our umbrellas, enjoying the brief breaks in the weather where the water was inky and still, and the clouds so dark they merged with the sea on the horizon, making it impossible to see where one began and the other ended.

One of my favourite things about the city was the architecture. In the most unexpected places we came across Roman ruins, which is unsurprising when you think the town has been Roman since around 52  BC and occupied for even longer. Still it was a surprise to round the corner of cobblestone streets and suddenly see a ruined amphitheater displayed before you! We also came across an old Roman arch which simply melded into a modern building; the juxtaposition between old and new was very striking.

The threatening storm made for a brooding and dramatic atmosphere, but we had no idea of what was to come. We camped far above Trieste in a campsite on a cliff, and it was that night that we were in the biggest storm I've ever witnessed in my life. The thunder was so loud it woke me from my sleep, unlike the usual boom of thunder this was like the sound of someone ripping a sheet only magnified by a thousand, like the sky was tearing itself apart. It was a wild night, but also beautiful to listen to (apart from the moment when I suddenly wondered if my hair-dryer was enough to make lightening hit the tent). 

In the morning, things seemed calmer, but then the torrential rain started and soon the streets were flooded. It rained. And rained. And rained. Drain pipe covers blew their lids from the water pressure below, streets turned into rivers, we saw an almost drowned rat at one point -the car in front of us stopped to let it go by as it struggled to ford the road turned river -  usually I'm not a fan of rats but its struggle was such that we were cheering it on! And it made it to the other side too!

Our plan for the morning had been to go to the Nazi Concentration Camp Risiera di San Sabba which now functioned as a museum, however it turned out to be totally flooded. Damn you rain for foiling our plans!

We settled instead for some crazy good ice-cream, which was worth the run in the pouring rain! The place had so many flavors it felt impossible to choose, I ended up picking at random what looked nice - my favourite was a creamy chocolatey fudgy flavor with thick white chocolate slabs in it. Delicious, but so sickly! We also had discovered that there were some Decathlon stores around the city and we were in desperate need of a new cooker as ours had mysteriously broken a while before.
Finally we were in luck, as we brought our broken cooker in for examination with little hope of actually getting a refund as we had lost the receipt and bought the cooker at a French Decathlon. But in typical Italian fashion they seemed fairly unfazed by this information and gave us a new one with very little trouble! Amazing service Decathlon.