Canal Grande Audio Guide

Canal Grande: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Canal Grande

   Welcome to the Canal Grande, a ribbon of water in the very middle of Trieste. You are in Borgo Teresiano, roughly halfway between the railway station and Piazza Unità d'Italia, and what lies in front of you is the only navigable canal in the city. Boats still tie up along its edges, which is a delightful surprise in a street-and-square district. The sources I have for this guide describe the canal itself and the buildings, bridges and squares along it very well. They say less about the precise spot where you may be standing, so I will tell you the story of the whole canal and let you match it to what you see. Look along the water and you will notice a handful of landmarks that frame the view: a church with pale blue domes, a neoclassical palace, a bronze figure on a bridge, and a café at the far end. Think of the canal as Trieste's old front door for trade. It was dug so that sailing ships could unload right in the heart of the new district, and much of what you can see around you grew from that practical idea. Let's start walking through it.

2. 02

   A Canal for the Empress's New Town

   Borgo Teresiano takes its name from Maria Theresa of Austria, at whose behest this district was designed. The canal was its water axis: a canal-harbour excavated in the mid eighteenth century so that ships could load and unload right in the center of the city. Local sources name Matteo Pirona as the man who built it, starting in 1754. Accounts differ on when it was finished. One says 1756 and another says 1766, so I will simply say it was a project of roughly a decade or less. Here is the aha moment. The canal was not dug from scratch through dry ground. According to a local history, it was made by deepening the main collector of the old salt pans. Those salt pans were filled in so that the city could grow outside its medieval walls. So the water you see follows a trace of the older, saltier landscape of Trieste. That is why the canal is described as one of the key elements of the new urban plan. The street grid of the new district and the waterway were designed together, so merchants could have their ships and warehouses practically side by side. The canal opens from the San Giorgio basin of the Old Port, which is how the sea reaches into town.

3. 03

   Bridges, Lanterns and an Irish Writer

   The most famous crossing is the Ponte Rosso, the Red Bridge, at the middle of the canal. A wooden bridge was built here in 1756, as soon as the canal was ready, and it was then the only bridge. It was rebuilt about 10 years later, and again in iron in 1832. Another source says it was a drawbridge until 1842 and then a revolving bridge until 1925, so these were clearly mechanical bridges that opened to let ships through. Today it is fixed. The Ponte Verde, the Green Bridge, at the sea end of the canal, was built in iron in 1858. Look at the four corners of the Red Bridge and you will see lanterns on the parapets. They once adorned a statue of Trieste's dedication to Austria that stood in front of the railway station. It was inaugurated in 1889 and removed in 1919, when Trieste became part of Italy, and the lanterns found a second life here. Then there is the bronze figure of James Joyce, the Irish writer who lived in the city. It was placed on the bridge in 2004 by the Triestine sculptor Nino Spagnoli, on the hundredth anniversary of Joyce's arrival in Trieste. The building on Piazza Ponterosso that housed the Berlitz School, which Joyce worked for, faces the square just beside it.

4. 04

   Merchant Palaces, Blue Domes and a Buried End

   The banks of the canal are lined with the legacy of the merchants who made Trieste's fortune. Palazzo Carciotti, from 1805, was designed by the architect Matteo Pertsch and is described as perhaps the finest example of Trieste neoclassicism. Palazzo Gopcevich is now home to the Schmidl Theatre Museum and the photo archive of the city museums. Palazzo Genel, from 1873, was designed by Domenico Monti. Near the sea, the red Palazzo Berlam went up between 1926 and 1928 to a design by Arduino Berlam. Locals call it the red skyscraper, and at six storeys it looked astonishingly tall at the time. The church with the light blue domes is the Serbian Orthodox church of Saint Spyridon, from 1869, designed by Carlo Maciachini. Closing the view is the nineteenth-century façade of Sant'Antonio Taumaturgo, described as the largest church in Trieste. Now a twist. The canal used to be longer and reached almost to the church of Sant'Antonio. Its last stretch was filled in 1934 with rubble from the demolition of the old city, creating today's Piazza Sant'Antonio, now laid out as a garden with a large fountain. Local lore says a small torpedo boat, moored there abandoned since the war, was buried too. That is a story told by locals, so enjoy it as legend rather than proven fact. The historic Stella Polare café overlooks the square.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you move on, take a slow look at the canal as one long story with layers. There is the salt-pan landscape that came before it, the empress's planned district around it, and the nineteenth-century merchants who built their palaces along its banks. Then there are the later layers: lanterns that once honored one political era and now light a bridge, and a garden square built on the rubble of the old city. If you have time, wander to Piazza Ponterosso. There is a fountain there from 1753 by Giovanni Battista Mazzoleni, topped by a little statue of a cherub that Triestines fondly call Giovannin de Ponterosso. Then walk toward the sea and notice how the view changes, from church domes and café tables to open water and the Old Port. And keep your eyes on the water itself. Which boats are tied up today, and how far has the canal's working life changed from the one it was dug for?