If you’re young, say in your 20s, heir (for the moment) to the Austrian throne, fascinated with botany and in the process of building yourself a fantasy castle on the Adriatic coast, well, of course you’d like it surrounded by gorgeous gardens.
In this case, we’re talking about the Archduke Maximillian, the 24-year-old younger brother of the Emperor Franz-Ferdinand, and Miramare, the elaborate estate he was creating for himself on a rocky crag a few miles north of Trieste, then the major seaport of the widespread empire. At 24, Maximillian, whose later career and death as usurper Emperor of Mexico was far in the future, was head of Austria’s small navy, a world traveler and a serious amateur botanist.
When the work started in 1856, the site was a rocky, treeless headland overlooking the fishing village of Grignano, which today harbors more yachts than fishing boats. Maximillian tasked Karl Junker, an engineer best known for work on water supplies, to design the house and fill its surrounding 50 acres with gardens.
The result is a pleasant park that mixes informal, almost forest-like, areas with areas of formal Italian gardens and areas that reflect English romantic landscaping of the time. Throughout, there’s a mixture of native species with imported trees and exotic plants, some of which Maximillian himself brought back from a round-the-world trip with navy ships.
The closer you come to the castle itself, as you wander through the gardens, the more formal elements appear, some with great views out over the Gulf of Trieste.
The castle itself is not the only monumental building on the premises; there is also the Castelletto, or Little Castle, which might seem in style almost a rehearsal for Miramare itself. Until the main castle was completed in 1860, it was home to Maximillian and his teen-aged bride, Princess Charlotte of Belgium. It has its own series of gardens and charms, including two charming fountains, one showing Eros strangling a goose and the other depicting four squirrels perched on the edge as though startled by approaching visitors.
A rather different-sized sculpture lurks at the head of the steep path up from Grignano, but it’s a temporary visitor; the gorilla by Davide Rivalta, cast in 2022, is on loan from a private collection and apparently a solid favorite with young climbers.
There’s also a ‘ruined chapel’ on the grounds; in landscaping terms, it’s a folly. It’s dedicated to San Canciano, said to be a martyr who died in the Grignano area, where a church was dedicated to him in the 14th century. The chapel at Miramare re-uses parts of earlier chapels including some Roman remnants. The wooden cross is made from timbers of the navy ship Novara on which Maximillian sailed for his round-the-world trip.
Miramare can be reached by a variety of methods from Trieste, in addition to driving. A ferry from the Molo Audace in Trieste makes the round trip several times a day, docking in Grignano, and there are trains from Trieste’s Central Station to Miramare, but the station is quite a hike from the castle and its grounds. The easiest way, and the cheapest, is to take either Bus 6 or Bus 36 from Trieste to Miramare-Grignano. It’s cheap, picturesque, and if you take the 6, you get an amazing corkscrews ride downhill that you won’t believe the bus is capable of. The 36 drops you at the castle entrance with less walking.
