1 hour bus
1.25eur (€1.25)
trieste (7 out of 7)
Vegan in Trieste
Trieste is small, so as you'd expect pure veg*n restaurants are limited. There was nonetheless more than enough to keep me occupied for a week though. Of course, every Italian restaurant offers the chance to take vegetarian pizza and pasta dishes without cheese, and most offer pizza marinara and spaghetti pomodoro anyway if you don't feel like making special requests.
Giardinio Tergesteo: a vegetarian restaurant with a lot of vegan options that I returned to over and over. They have ample seating options outside, inside, and outside-inside in a kind of mall area. There's power and wifi, and it's the sort of place you could go for a formal dinner, or to spend an afternoon with your laptop. At lunchtimes on weekdays they have a changing pasta dish, and the rest of the time they have salads, sandwiches (various breads and fillings) and a variety of vegan cake.
Erb Osteria: somewhat out of the way and in an odd part of town, this is a small vegetarian restaurant where all dishes are oriented around aromatic herbs. The menu changes daily, so it isn't written down. The decor was very cute, and it wasn't busy when I was there early evening. I asked the owner to furnish me with courses of vegan dishes, and was not disappointed. I was even more surprised by the price at the end, which was 13 EUR for a starter, main, dessert, iced tea, and another dessert to go. You would have to go out of your way to pass here I think, but worth a detour.
Draw Food: Draw is raw, but not all vegan. The menu is mostly meat and fish options, but one section is veg*n and some dishes can be tweaked to remove non-vegan cheese. They have their own cashew-based ricotta which I couldn't get enough of. There's power and wifi, and the decor is great. I spent an afternoon here with my laptop, as well as returning for several other meals, lunchtime and evenings. I had the aubergine ricotta dish twice, and it was slightly different but deliciously creamy both times. I also tried courgette spaghetti with mushrooms, which had an interesting tomato sauce, and a wrap. The dishes are beautifully presented, and small but well crafted. From here I also had juices, milkshakes, and coffees, when soya milk was available.
Genuino: is a good-for-you 'fast' food outlet, and everything comes packaged to-go, though there's plenty of space to eat in. The menu is omnivorous, but I tried all the vegan options I think: the vegan burger (a vegetable patty with copious salad, roasted potatoes, in a panini), a wild rice dish with finely chopped veggies, nuts and seeds, and a rich tomatoey sauce, and something similar but with millet.
La Caveja: is on the same lines as Geniuno, but with wraps. They have a separate vegan menu, which includes a hazelnut chocolate dessert wrap. Meanwhile, I tried roasted vegetables with a really delicious harissa sauce.
Gelato Marco: is a well known gelateria which has around a dozen vegan flavours. I worked my way through, trying chocolate cherry, different combinations of fruit sorbets, hazelnut, pistachio, and others..
Le Agavi: is a pizza place on the outskirts of Trieste; I walked an hour from the center to reach it. They have a big vegan menu, of pizzas topped with rice mozzerella and combinaions of tofu and vegetables, as well as different sauces. For some reason, leeks feature heavily. Totally worth the walk; I ate one there and took two back.. more in this post.
At D'Napoli (famous for pizza), they tweaked the gnocchi for me to remove mozzerella and add chilli (most places don't have chilli so this was great). The spaghetti pomodoro I had at a few places on various occasions, ever simple, was consistently rich and delicious. Aside from just wanting greens in my diet, I didn't tire of the experience of consuming this dish.
Treiste some more
After drafting my last post from Zoe Market cafe, I was struck with the urge to see what the Trieste coastline had to offer further south. I walked to the port area, and discovered it's not really a place for wandering.. big highways and industrial buildings. Nonetheless, even the warehouses and apartment blocks were fairly aesthetically pleasing, and at one point a long park runs parallel to the coast, almost like an apology. GPS trace of the walk here.
I did make it to Pedocin beach eventually though. It took a while to find.. I walked around the pier, which felt quite dead, and found the lighthouse. But industrial buildings in every direction seemed to be preventing me from accessing the coast.. though as I walked past one large wall, I could hear children, so I persisted. Eventually I found the entrance, through an unassuming concrete cabin. I think the entry fee is 1 Euro, but there was no-one there to take it. The cabin has two exits, on the left for women and the right for men. A wall divides the beach in two. The beach is pebbles, with immediate access to the sea; small and peaceful, with one vendor selling drinks and snacks. I napped until I was woken by the tide lapping at my feet.
Super pretty white and purple barrel jellyfish fill the bay around here, and Pedocin was no exception. It was only 20 minutes to follow the coast around back into town. More photos here.
In the evening I ate cake from Giardina Tergesteo and pizza (oops) from DNapoli. I had to add the remaining half of a Marinara to the pizza I had already accumulated from Le Agavi the day before.
The next day we picked up gelato and took that and the pizza backlog to Molo Audace, a long concrete pier off Piazza Unita, for a picnic. Later in the evening I walked by myself to ErbOsteria, a charming vegetarian restaurant which uses aromatic herbs for all dishes. I was the only one there for most of the evening, and was treated to a three-course vegan meal with homemade iced tea. It was a wonderful change from the white-flour-and-tomato based meals I've been eating most of the week; high quality ingrediants, freshly crafted, and I was ready to pay gourmet prices. There was no written menu as it changes daily, so I had no idea what to expect to pay.. and three courses plus tea plus an extra dessert to take back for Kit came to 13.50EUR! Unbelievable. My phone was dead so I only managed to take crappy pictures of the food with my laptop webcam. I'll spare you. The starter was fresh courgette, thinly sliced and raw, dressed with lemon and mint. The main was gnocchi (boiled potato dumplings) with asparagus sauce (I heard the blender go, so I think the asparagus was freshly sauce-d for me) sprinkled with almonds. Followed by cake with balsamic herbs. I took a slice of stunning strawberry tart back for Kit, as I don't like strawberries but it looked far too good to go to not be appreciated by someone. He'd eaten it before I remembered to take a photo.
As of this morning, I relocated from Trieste center to a hostel up the coast, near to Miramare. It is directly on the seafront.. this is the view from the balcony, where I'm typing right now. Soon I will be bored of typing, and will go down to enjoy the last few hours of sun from that concrete beach I told you about in my last post, and hopefully find some granita.
Discovering Trieste
I spent the first few days wandering around the center of Trieste, and easily stumbled upon all of the Piazzi (I'm going to assume this is the plural of Piazza without looking it up), piers, statues and Roman ruins that todo-in-trieste guides tell you to see. The core of Trieste is small and compact, as well as alive and beautiful, day and night. The town is set into the base - and creeping up the side - of hills which turn to mountains. From any perspective the backdrop is stunning. Green mountains dotted with orange rooftops in one direction, and the bright blue Adriatic Sea in the other.
More photos from wanderings here and here.
You probably know you can't confine me to a new town's core for very long though. Yesterday we took the 42 bus to Grotto Gigante, a giant cave about a 30 minute ride up and over some hills out of Trieste. Well worth the 9 EUR entrance fee (for student; 12 for 'adult'), this enormous chasm is one of the largest publicly accessible caves in Europe. Guided tours are hourly, and we learnt about the history of the cave's discovery and usage, the growth of the stalagmites and stalagtites, and the scientific research that goes on down there. Our tourgroup was occupied by an enormous pack of schoolkids, but the guide did a great job at distracting them so we (the handful of non-Italian speakers) could take undisturbed photos, and keeping them quiet whilst she recapped the information in English.
The cave really is enormous, and the rock formations are really cool. It took about an hour to tour through it. The temperature inside is a cool 11 degrees C, and damp.
The tickets included a 10% discount at the nearest restaurant, but the staff there were surly and none of the food looked good. There was nowhere to buy a bus ticket around the Grotto Gigante, so I figured we could walk along the bus route a bit and somewhere would surely pop up in one of the villages. Bus tickets here are bought before boarding, from corner shops or (less available) ticket machines. Nowhere popped up. Kit was a good sport and agreed to walk all the way to Miramare though (GPS trace). Some of this route was along roads, but OpenStreetMaps showed plenty of off-road trails which we took when we could. It was a very pleasant walk through grassy woods in between small villages, and all downhill.
We reached Miramare after one and a half hours. Castello Miramare is a stately home standing over the sea, and set in an enormous and impressive park grounds. We stopped for lunch at the cafe in the park, which was nice. I had a perfectly adequate roasted vegetable panino, and Kit ate lasagne and claims he has definitely made better ones himself. The surroundings were lovely though.
I went to check out the castle, but it's a new one not old, and inside was art galleries and furniture. I felt I could spend the 8 EUR entrance fee on something I'd enjoy more. I did find out from the friendly staff in the ticket office that there is nowhere within 5km to buy a bus ticket though, and the best option was just to hop on the bus and plead ignorance if we were asked for a ticket.
We followed the coast around to the park exit, and then along a bit more to the bus stop. The coast between Miramare Trieste for a few km is concrete 'beach' Barcolo with steps leading directly the the ocean. It was well populated with sunbathers and swimmers. Trieste doesn't have any sand beaches, but actually that's far more practical. It doesn't seem to make any difference to the locals.
We took the number 6 bus back to town. It was packed, and our lack of ticket went unnoticed. More photos from the cave, castle and walk between them here.
Kit was done with walking, but after a couple of hours back at the hotel I had itchy feet again. I took the opportunity to quest for vegan mozzerella, at a pizzaria I found on HappyCow, one hour's walk from Trieste center. Walking through Trieste though is never a waste of time, even without vegan cheese at the end of it. OpenStreetMap routed me through some wonderful winding streets, and then along a cyclepath. This cyclepath was sheltered from the city center, and turns out to be 12km long and leads to Slovenia. Awesome. (GPS trace).
Le Agavi did not disappoint. It's far enough away I'm not sure if it's even technically in Trieste, but it was on a quiet street with indoor and outdoor seating. A vegan menu with several options; rice-based mozzerella, tofu, various sauces and veggies, I was spoilt for choice. I devoured one pizza, then ordered two more to takeaway because I'm an adult and I can do whatever I want. I took the bus back to Trieste center. Photos from the walk and eating.
This morning I had pizza for breakfast, then set out to check out Castello San Giusto. A student entrance is only 2 EUR; it has an armoury, some historical rooms, and walls with, you guessed it, specatcular views in all directions.
On the way I stopped for chocolate cherry gelato from Gelato Marco. Now I'm in Zoe Market, an all vegetarian cafe and store, which has lots of vegan options and milks. There's no wifi, but there's one power outlet, and it's a nice place to sit and catch up on blog posts..
Entry to Castle Guisto
2eur (€2)
2x entrance to Grotto Gigante
21eur (€21)
Two 1 hour bus tickets
2.50eur (€2.5)
