From the historian's notes

Trieste, 1908

Italy · Europe · 1908-11-04 · autumn

What it was high

major imperial port, roughly 200,000+ people; Austria-Hungary's principal harborancient Tergeste; free port of the Habsburgs from 1719, which is what made it big

That year

• Bosnian annexation crisis — Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina announced 6 October 1908; weeks of diplomatic alarm follow through the winter October 1908 onward highEuropean crisis, felt locally as newspaper fever and navy movements
• Austrian Lloyd steamers run scheduled lines from Trieste to Alexandria, the Levant, Bombay and the Far East — the city is the empire's one window on the sea throughout 1908 highdaily commercial reality

Who held it high

Austria-Hungary — Imperial Free City of Trieste, capital of the Austrian LittoralEmperor Franz Joseph IAustria annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina on 6 October 1908 — one month before her date the papers and the harbor talk are full of the crisis; irredentist (pro-Italy) feeling in the city runs against the Austrian administration

Its name high

Trieste (Italian-speaking majority); Triest in official German; Trst in SloveneWritten in Latin

The date, there high

1908Gregorian calendar, Central European railway timeRailway time (Central European) rules the city; church bells still sound; factory and steamer sirens structure the harbor day; the Lloyd timetable is the real town clock. A noon signal may have existed but is unverified

Money medium

Austro-Hungarian kroneheller (100 to the krone), since the 1892 currency reforma stand-up harbor coffee or a paper cone of fried fish: a modest number of heller — exact tariffs unverified

Weather medium

early November: raw, changeable, roughly 8-12 C by day; bora episodes possible any time from autumn onwardbora gusts strong enough that ropes or chains were strung along exposed streets for pedestrians — confidence: medium

Things

Objectsnewspapers on wooden sticks; Lloyd sailing timetables posted at the agency; poste restante pigeonholes at the imperial post office; hand cameras — a Kodak-era traveler can photograph openly; bentwood cafe chairsFoodsardines and sardoni (anchovies) grilled at stand-up counters; jota (sauerkraut and bean soup); coffee in every form — this is the empire's coffee port; strudel and presnitz pastry; wine from the karst (terrano)Clothwool overcoats and loden; feathered hats; oilskins on the moles; shawls on market womenGetting aboutelectric trams; steamers and coastal luggers; the Southern Railway to Vienna; horse drays hauling from the free portIn the airroasting coffee from the warehouses; salt and tar; coal smoke; fried fish

What she'd hear

Triestine Italian dominates the streets; Slovene in the suburbs and markets; German in offices and on the railway; Greek and Serbian in the merchant houses. She can pass in standard Italian or French as a traveler; German helps at counters of state.

Where she could stand

• Canal Grande / Ponterosso market — masted boats moored in a canal that dead-ends at a church, fruit and fish stalls alongside
• Molo San Carlo — the main mole; Lloyd steamers, hawsers, emigrants and cotton bales
• Caffe Tommaseo — the city's old cafe (opened 1830), marble tables, newspapers on sticks in three languages
• Piazza Grande at the sea edge — the main square open to the harbor on one side, city hall (1875) on the other
• Opicina tram — electric tram (opened 1902) climbing the karst ridge above the gulf

Researched for this card · confidence high