Before Sunset

My autumn outings continue. While Alfie took Princess and her friend Giulio to the Circus, I went hiking in one of the popular paths here, the Napoleonica road. It's interesting because while one side is all about woods and nature, the other offers breathtaking views over Trieste and its coast.

"My Karst is hard and good. Every blade of grass has split the rock to break, every flower has drunk the heat to open." Scipio Slataper

When you reach the final area, about 3 km afterwards, where the rocky facade is paradise for climbers, it all gets gloriously vibrant because of sunset, which was impatiently foreshadowed during all my way up there.

And when then sunset magically explodes, you're left speachless in front of the wonders of nature ...

After absorbing such marvels, I returned home happy and content (exhausted too after so many hours hiking, but this is a trivial detail) and stopped near the obelisk to capture final shots of Trieste by night. The best view of the city can be admired from Opicina for sure. 

I crossed the whole city.
Then I climbed a steep,
populous in the beginning, and gradually desert,
closed by a wall:
a corner where I sit alone
and it seems that it ends

where the city ends.

Trieste has a grumpy
grace. If you like it,

it is like a bad boy, hard and voracious
with blue eyes and hands that are too big
to give a flower;
like a love
with jealousy.
From this hill I discover every church, every street
and I find out if the beach leads pack size,
or the hill where, on the stony
top, there is a house, the last, clutching.
Around it all

there is a strange air, a painful air,

the native air.

My city is alive in every part,
it is my nook, for my life,

thoughtful and shy.

Umberto Saba