Quick, name a multicultural city at the center of international trade that loves coffee? Name a prosperous city with a working waterfront that loves shellfish? And a big university town as well? Understandable if you said Seattle, but the answer is Trieste.
The intersecting cultures are Italian, Slavic and Germanic, and Trieste's strategic position along trade routes from the Adriatic into Central Europe have made it Italy's most rapidly growing economic success story. The central square, the Piazza dell'Unità d'Italia, celebrates the union of Italy's 20 regions into a single country (in 1851) with magnificent classic architecture; it's the largest public square in Europe that opens directly onto the sea.
The Collio wine producers association brought us here for a final dinner to celebrate the white wines of their production zone. Chef Emilio Cuk, owner of the MonteCarlo restaurant, put together a menu composed entirely of shellfish and seafood from local waters, including clams and sardines seasoned with lemon and pepper, a great match for wines made with one of Collio's indigenous grapes, ribolla gialla.
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