7 Best Sights in Trieste, The Veneto and Friuli–Venezia Giulia

Dating from the 14th century and occupying the site of an ancient Roman forum, the cathedral contains remnants of at least three previous buildings, the earliest a hall dating from the 5th century. A section of the original floor mosaic still remains, incorporated into the floor of the present church. In the 9th and 11th centuries two adjacent churches were built—the Church of the Assumption and the Church of San Giusto. The beautiful apse mosaics of these churches, done in the 12th and 13th centuries by a Venetian artist, still remain in the apses of the side aisles of the present church. The mosaics in the main apse date from 1932. In the 14th century the two churches were joined and a Romanesque-Gothic facade was attached, ornamented with fragments of Roman monuments taken from the forum. The jambs of the main doorway derive from Roman funereal stelae.

On the hill near the Castello, this eclectic collection showcases statues from the Roman theater, mosaics, and a wealth of artifacts from Egypt, Greece, and Rome. There's also an assortment of glass and manuscripts. The Orto Lapidario (Lapidary Garden) has classical statuary, pottery, and a small Corinthian temple. The collection was renamed in 2018 after the pioneering art historian and Hellenist J. J. Winckelmann, who was murdered in Trieste in 1768.

A statue of Hapsburg emperor Leopold I looks out over this square, which contains Trieste's original stock exchange, the Borsa Vecchia (1805), an attractive neoclassical building now serving as the chamber of commerce. It sits at the end of the Canal Grande, dug in the 18th century by the Austrian empress Maria Theresa as a first step in the expansion of what was then a small fishing village of 7,000 into the port of her empire.

The imposing square, ringed by grandiose facades, was set out as a plaza open to the sea, like Venice's Piazza San Marco, in the late Middle Ages. It underwent countless changes through the centuries, and its present size and architecture are essentially products of late-19th- and early-20th-century Austria. It was given its current name in 1955, when Trieste was finally given to Italy. On the inland side of the piazza, note the facade of the Palazzo Comunale (Town Hall), designed by the Triestino architect Giuseppe Bruni in 1875. It was from this building's balcony in 1938 that Mussolini proclaimed the infamous racial laws, depriving Italian Jews of most of their rights. The sidewalk cafés on this vast seaside piazza are popular meeting places in the summer months.

In September 1943 the Nazi occupation established Italy's only concentration camp in this rice-processing factory outside Trieste. In April 1944 a crematorium was put into operation. The Nazis destroyed much of the evidence of their atrocities before their retreat, but a good deal of the horror of the place is still perceivable in the reconstructed museum (1975). The site, an Italian national monument since 1965, receives more than 100,000 visitors per year.

This small Romanesque gem, dating from the 9th to the 12th centuries, is the oldest church in Trieste that's still in use and in approximately its original form. Its interior walls have some fragmentary remains of Romanesque frescoes. The church was deconsecrated under the secularizing reforms of the Austrian emperor Josef II in 1785 and was later sold to the Swiss Evangelical community; it then became, and is still, the Reformed Evangelical and Waldensian Church of Trieste.

The ruins of this 1st-century amphitheater, opposite the city's questura (police station), were discovered during 1938 demolition work. Its crumbling and partly grassy steps can be viewed from the street, while its statues are now displayed at the Museo Civico. The space is used for summer plays and concerts.