Trieste Events

The Barcolana

On the second Sunday of October, the largest sailing regatta in the world by number of entries: well over a thousand boats start together in the gulf, watched from the whole waterfront. It began in 1969 as a local club race. The week before it fills the city with rigging, crews and an enormous amount of drinking, and it is the single busiest date of the Trieste year.

The osmiza season

Not an event but a rhythm: Karst farms open in rotation through the year for a few weeks each, selling their own wine, ham and cheese at a farmhouse table, signalled by a branch hung at the roadside.

Trieste Film Festival

In January, dedicated to central and eastern European cinema, which in this city is a statement of geography rather than a theme. It has run since 1989 and predates the borders it now ignores.

San Giusto

The patronal feast on 3 November, centred on the cathedral on the hill, and the one day in the year when the old town at the top is busier than the waterfront.

Science in the city

Trieste has more researchers per head than anywhere else in Italy, and its institutes run a public festival and open days that are unusually good.

Summer on the seafront

From June the city moves outdoors: swimming from the rocks at Barcola, open-air cinema, and a long evening promenade along the shore that is the closest Trieste comes to a Mediterranean habit.

Remembrance

The Risiera di San Sabba and the foibe are both marked by official commemorations, on 27 January and 10 February, and both are politically charged occasions.