This year’s European Capital of Culture has been an unusual choice: In some past years, the title was shared between two cities, but for 2025 it’s shared between two adjoining cities in two different countries—almost a capstone for their proclaimed Borderless status. They are serious enough about that that the two towns and another in Slovenia have a transnational administration for many services.
But things were not always so ideal. The title picture shows a market where the border between Italy and Slovenia runs through the great plaza in front of the 1906 railway station—right where the border sign and the barbed wire are in the picture just above. A lot has changed in the past two decades!
While visiting Trieste last summer, I took a day to visit the city on the (no) border. At the Italian rail station on the other side of town, I hopped on an ordinary city bus to another country; my only clue that I’d entered Slovenia was passing the Slovenian station that was once an important stop on trains from Vienna to Trieste. I rode a few stops and started my walk back to the Nova Gorica station and then eventually back to the Gorizia station.
To be honest, I wasn’t surprised at how modern Nova Gorica looks; the 1947 border-drawing put Gorizia in Italy with only a sparsely-populated area past the station; the new town has all been built since then.
Gorizia was once called ‘the Austrian Nice’ for its summer mix of vacationing royals and wealthy; this poster is for one of the Capital of Culture events—a musical theater performance in four languages of ‘From Nice to Gorizia: A Love Without Borders’ with 270 performers on stage. The four languages? Italian, Slovenian, German and Friulian!
Speaking of languages, note that this street sign in Nova Gorica has no Italian, but does include English! Another interesting language/culture note: The big square in front of the station is called Europe Square in Slovenian, while on the Italian side it’s called Trans-Alpine Square, the name it was given by Austria in 1906 when the Trans-Alpine Railway was completed.
Another cultural difference: In Nova Gorica, statues honoring partisans, many of them communists, who were killed fighting the Nazis during World War II; after the war the partisan organizations fought for Yugoslav rather than Italian control of the area.
My path brought me back to the station, where the platform has more customers for coffee than for trains; since the partition the line has served only local trains although there are plans to revive passenger traffic in the future. The low fence in the upper picture, by the way, is an international border. But, as they say, Borderless!
Leaving the station and continuing into Italy and Gorizia’s center, I walked through a neighborhood of well-to-do homes and gardens, one of them equipped with a puzzling warning sign.
A really nice rubblestone wall with a tree that may be not many years away from threatening it…
The Caribinieri station; like many official buildings in the area, it’s a Habsburg leftover—but not the Mercato Coperto, or covered market, a quite handsome and busy 1927 building in the center of the city. The city’s seal on the market gates was identified by George G in our One-Clue Mystery this week.
The logo and slogan of the Cultural Capital are in windows everywhere in town…
Just past the market is a rather nice public park with a fountain, benches and some rather odd animal guardians, part of an art project that has scattered colorful dogs, cats and even elephants around town.
Along the main streets of he center, the Austrian 19th-century influence on architecture is fairly easy to see—but there are notable exceptions including the Venetian-styled offices of the Generali insurance company.
\
Continuing along the shaded boulevard headed to the Italian rail station, I encountered another set of local heroes: Edvard and Josip Rusjan, pioneer aviators and plane builders. Like the Wright Brothers, they owned a bicycle shop—Edvard was a professional cyclist—and hand-built their first plane in 1909. After struggling for financing, they found a sponsor, but unfortunately Edvard died in a crash in 1911; 14,000 people attended his funeral.
By that time, I’d been walking for hours and needed a bite to eat before entering the station for a train back to Trieste. That’s Pizza Prosciutto, Gorizia style. Recommended!
And the station…
