The winds turned against me as I rode westward to Trieste, my last stop in Italy. It was a long day, but the fall colors were strong and the sunset was strong. I was getting a glimpse of the Adriatic coast and it was beautiful.
I was also coming down from the high of being in Venice and having a good travel companion. I started to feel lonely and uninspired about riding. I felt saturated and somehow bored. Nothing I saw could come close to Venice.
Along the way I cross-crossed with a French bike tourist, Sylvan who was on his way to Istanbul as well, but he was going at a slower pace, so we parted ways. We exchanged WhatsApp so we could keep in contact along the way. That made me feel less alone because I hadn’t seen cyclists for a long time since the weather was changing.
Trieste was cold, windy and empty. I felt like I was walking around in a skeleton. All I could see were closed doors and trash blowing around on the street and that started to get me down.
The oldest cafe (only 1956 lol) in California is called Cafe Trieste, where the founder was from, so I was interested to see what the coffee scene was like. It turns out that Illy Coffee is based there! I didn’t get to see any factory or headquarters but I was able to check out a few historic coffee houses when I was there though, and that was exciting.
Caffe San Marco 
Caffe San Marco 
Caffè degli Specchi
Although the Austro-Hungarian influence was interesting to notice in Trieste, I was ready to move on after a day or so.