We met this lady quite by chance at a bookshop in Trieste, Italy.
At the end of WW2, there was conflict over who was to own Trieste – Yugoslavia or Italy or an independent state. During thus troubled period, many Italians fled from Trieste because life there was dangerous. Many Italians were killed by Yugoslav partisans.
This lady, then a small child, fled with her mother to Rome, and was one of the first refugees to arrive there.
The book she is holding is about that era, and she is the small child on the front cover.
The first time I visited Trieste was by car in the 1980s. As I wanted to avoid having to drive within the city and because I was worried about parking there, I stopped on a village near Trieste. My idea was to leave the car there, and enter the city by local bus.
I parked close to a restaurant. As soon as I opened the car door, the odour of sauerkraut, a foodstuff that I adore, assailed my nose. Immediately, I entered the trattoria, and ordered a dish with sauerkraut – a food preparation I had not expected to find in Italy.
Well, I should not have been surprised. The part of Italy containing Trieste is not only close to sauerkraut eating areas such as Austria and the former Yugoslavia, but was also once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Today, 21 September 2026, I was back in Trieste. At lunch, I ordered a “Triestino”. It was a plate with cooked ham, potatoes fried with onions, raw horseradish, mustard, and … SAUERKRAUT! Needless to say, it was delicious.
For less than the price of a single journey ticket on one of the water buses in Venice, you can buy a return ticket for the 30 minute ferry ride between Trieste and its southern neighbour Muggia – a little port on the northern fringe of the Istrian peninsula. This narrow strip of Italian territory is very near the Slovenian border.
Approaching Muggia by sea, the place’s modern surroundings, which is all that the arriving traveller can see from the boat, look barely inviting. However, a short walk brings one into the maze of attractive streets and piazzas of the old town.
The cathedral – ‘duomo’ – is in the heart of the old town. It was constructed while Muggia was part of the Patriarchy of Aquilea. Consecrated in 1263, it is a spacious church decorated with freckles, some of which look as if they have been mutilated by a sharp object. We visited this church and two other charming smaller ones – Chiesa del Crocifisso and the Chiesa di S Francisco, which was restored in 1411.
Near the edge of the old town, there is a short cul-de-sac called Calle del Ghetto. It is believed by some that some that Jewish people once lived there, but the evidence is slender. The town’s records do not record any inhabitants processing this religion.
Muggia has a long history, stretching back to prehistoric times. After the decline of the Western Roman Empire, Muggia was under Ostrogoth, Lombard, Byzantine, Avar and Frank dominations, until 931, when king Hugh of Italy donated it to the Patriarch of Aquileia. In 1420, Muggia became part of the Venetian empire, and remained so until 1797, when Venice fell. The town then became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After WW1, Muggia became part of Italy, and has remained so ever since. Although between 1945 and 1954 it was part of the short-lived, nominally independent Free Territory of Trieste – in the sector controlled by the Americans and British. The other sector was under Yugoslav control.
Today, Muggia is a thriving tourist destination. Despite this, it is not overwhelmed: it is a lovely place to wander about, and there are plenty of places to eat and drink. Much to my surprise, Muggia seems not to be dominated by tourism. There are plenty of ‘locals’ around. We had coffee in a small bar which had far more locals than visitors. Although the lady who made it was friendly, the cappuccino she served me was one of the worst I have drunk anywhere. Maybe, I was simply unlucky, or, perhaps Muggia being on the very edge of Italy, the magic of cappuccino has become diluted by being so close to Slovenia.
The Lutheran church in central Trieste was built in an austere late gothic style between 1871 and 1874. Outside its west end, in Largo Odorico Panfili, there is a tall cylinder surrounded by transparent glass or plastic. Within the cylinder there are models of people. This artwork is a monument to a tragic era.
The monument called “Momentum”, designed by Jasmine Iannì and Giuseppe Sabatino, is dedicated to the memory of those Italians who fled from areas that had been Italian but had been incorporated into Tito’s Yugoslavia at the e d of WW2. These territories included Istria, Fiume, Dalmatia, and Zadar .
Well, I knew about these refugees, but not about something else commemorated by the monument. What I had not known about were the ‘foibe’ killings – massacres of Italians living in the formerly Italian territories that became part of Yugoslavia. These were, it is said, carrued out by Tito’s communist partisans. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foibe_massacres):
“The estimated number of foibe victims is disputed, varying from hundreds to thousands,according to some sources 11,000or 20,000…”
I was horrified to learn about this. I had read that many anti-communist Yugoslavs and other opponents of Tito had been killed or imprisoned at the end of WW2. In the 1980s, I knew the wife of a man who had been imprisoned by Tito in 1945 because he was “the wrong kind of communist”, and was still behind bars in the mid-1980s.
However, until I saw the monument inTrieste today in September 2026, I did not know about the Italians who had been massacred simply because overnight in 1945, they were suddenly living in the wrong place.
In Venice and other towns in Italy, we have been told that for hygienic reasons, customers cannot be served acqua dell rubinetto – tap water.
Seen im Venice
Yet, at bars in those same towns, tap water can be served with a cup of coffee.
And on the water buses in Venice, the city council has put up signs – see my photo – encouraging people to DRINK TAP WATER.
IF tap water was to be served in restaurants, the greedy owners might be deprived of 1 to 4 Euros per bottle of the only kind of water they are prepared to serve.
From early childhood until I was 17 years old I visited Venice with my parentsevery year for 7 to 10 days.
We used to stay at the Pensione La Calcina on the Zattere shore of the Giudecca Canal – the waterway along which liners, car ferries, and freighters sailed through Venice on their journeys between the Adriatic and the port of Marghera.
It was at La Calcina that John Ruskin stayed in 1877. Back in the 1960s, the coffee served with breakfast at this pensione was almost undrinkable. I hope that now the place has been considerably upgraded, it serves better coffee.
Because of the terrible coffee, the first thing we did after breakfast every day was to walk from La Calcina to the Academia Bridge, cross it, and then after passing two piazzas, reached Bar il Redentore.
Bar Redentore
The bar occupies a corner plot next to a bridge crossing a narrow canal. There, my parents ordered espresso coffees, and my sister and I would be given small bottles of fruit juice.
The Bar il Redentore is still in business and looks very much as I remember it did in my childhood in the 1960s … and before!This September – 2026 – I have returned to the little bar twice – once for morning coffee and the other time for beer and cicchetti – Venetian ‘canapés. And on each visit, I marvelled at the fact that I have been visiting this bar at intervals for almost than 6 decades.
Across the bridge, there is a small shop that sells artisan paper goods. Like the Bar il Redentore, that has been in business since before I first visited Venice.
I have loved Venice since as far back as I can remember. Much of it looks as if it has not changed since then, but excessive tourism has done nothing to improve it. Many of the city’s visitors – both foreigners and Italians – are what could be described on Italian as ‘maleducati’ – you can look this up – and selfish. And, with a few exceptions, many of the Venetians have become unfriendly and very mercenary.
Although Venice is truly magical, I am not sure that I want to pay another visit tothis city filled with lovely memories for me. I would rather retain these memories than become disillusioned with La Serenissima.
WHILE HAVING MY hair trimmed recently by an Albanian barber, who came to London from Prishtina in Kosovo, I recalled a visit to a barbershop in rural Italy.
Before and after
It was in the 1980s and I was driving through northern Italy on my way to visiting my sister, who lived further south. I decided that I should have my hair tidied up before I saw her, and stopped my hired car outside a hair cutting establishment in a small village.
I entered the parrucchiere and was summoned to a chair by one of the barbers. He began cutting my hair, and then stopped suddenly. Throwing his hands up above his head, he exclaimed operatically:
“Forfore!”,
Which is the Italian word for ‘dandruff’.
Hearing this, other customers sitting in the shop, awaiting their turn, looked alarmed, and covered their heads with their hands.
Without asking me, the barber applied a lotion to my head. Whatever it was, it felt as if it was boring its way into my skull. This medication added an extra 5000 lire (£4 at the time, but about £10 in today’s money) to my bill (those were the days before Italy adopted the Euro).
Well, I am pleased to report that today my barber from Kosovo did not feel it necessary to throw up his hands and exclaim in Albanian:
LAST NIGHT I ENJOYED a pint of Moretti beer in a pizzeria on Mersea Island (Essex). The beer company was formed in 1859 in a town in northeast Italy: Udine. The company logo is a man wearing a hat and holding a glass tankard of beer.
In the 1960s, a young lady from Udine, Adriana, came to London to teach Italian at the LSE, where my father was a professor of economics. My parents, who loved Italy and Italians, used to invite Adriana to our home. Soon, she became a family friend.
After her return to Italy, we used to visit Adriana and her hospitable parents in Udine. In Udine and all over the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, in which the city is located, there were advertising hoardings for Birra Moretti. The images of the hatted beer drinker were as ubiquitous as were images of Tito in Yugoslavia or of Lenin in the USSR.
As I drank my pint of Moretti in West Mersea, happy memories of Adriana, her family, and trips made to Udine came back to me.
By the way, the Waterfront Pizza in West Mersea, where I drank the Moretti, is a superb place to enjoy an evening. Not only are the pizzas high quality, but also the ambience and management of the place is excellent. Although we were eating on an island next to the coast of Essex, it felt as if we were hundreds of miles away on the shores of the Mediterranean.
DURING THE LATE 1950s and much of the 1960s, my mother created artworks in the sculpture workshops of St Martins School of Art, which was then located on Charing Cross Road near to Foyles bookshop. My mother was a keen follower of the recipes of Elizabeth David (1913-1992), who introduced Mediterranean food to British kitchens. Near to St Martins in Old Compton Street, there were many food shops that supplied the ingredients that were required to follow Ms David’s recipes accurately. There used to be a French greengrocer between Charing Cross Road and Greek Street. This was one of the only places where ‘exotic’ salads such as mâché (lamb’s lettuce) could be purchased. Further west along Old Compton Street, there was a Belgian butcher, Benoit Bulcke, which cut meat in the French style, which my mother preferred. She claimed that English butchers were not ‘up to scratch’. Both these shops have long since disappeared. Another Soho establishment, which we used to visit regularly, was Trattoria da Otello in Dean Street. We went there so often that we were treated like old friends. Now, sadly, that wonderful restaurant is no more.
Three Old Compton Street shops frequented by my mother are still in business. They are the Algerian Coffee Stores, whose appearance has barely changed since the early 1960s when I first remember entering it; and a supplier of Italian foods: I Camisa & Son. Lina Stores, which my mother also used to visit still exists, but its branch on Brewer Street (and other newer branches) seems to have become more like restaurants than Italian delicatessens.
During school holidays, I used to accompany my mother on trips from Golders Green, where we resided, to the West End. On most of these excursions, food shopping in Soho was on our itinerary. So, as a youngster I got to know these various food shops quite well. As an innocent child, I associated Soho with food shopping rather than its other more colourful activities.
Every visit to Soho involved a stop at Bar Italia on Frith Street. There, I would be treated with a cappuccino while my mother drank an espresso. From when I first knew it in the early 1960s (or possibly the late 1950s), the overall appearance of Bar Italia has barely changed. As a friend remarked on a recent visit, the cracked Formica counter opposite the bar is typical of how cafés would have been fitted out back in the 1950s.
Bar Italia is almost three years older than me. It was founded in late 1949 by Lou and Caterina Polledri. Lou was born in the Italian city of Piacenza. According to the Bar’s website, some of the above-mentioned Formica was put in place in 1949, when the establishment was for its time ‘state-of-the-art’. The floor is that which was laid down by members of the Polledri family in 1949.
When it opened, Soho had a large Italian community, which much appreciated the Bar Italia as a home-away-from-home. At the far end of the small establishment, there is a television that broadcasts Italian TV, mostly sporting events. Each time I visit the place, the screen sems to have been replaced by a larger one. However, I cannot recall whether there was a television in place when I visited as a child. What I do remember is that next door to Bar Italia, there used to be a Greek restaurant called Jimmy’s, which, for some reason, my mother never took us there.
Once a local for the Italian community, Bar Italia has become somewhat of a Soho landmark and tourist attraction. In addition to coffee and alcoholic drinks that would be available in any local bar in Italy, Bar Italia now also serves hot meals. It also sells Portuguese ‘natas’, which are not typical fare in bars in Italy. Apart from this change, the prices of its excellent coffee have shot up to levels higher than most London cafés charge. Whereas one can expect to pay from on average £2.80 to “£3.20” for an espresso, Bar Italia is now charging over £4.20. I mention this, but do not begrudge them because by patronising Bar Italia we are helping to preserve a delightful historical London landmark.
NOW watch this lovely little video about the place:
