I was in Trieste for a few days, last week, to attend the meeting of the Italian Society for Radiation Research, a tiny group of just about 100 members. What a lovely town Trieste is. Sea and mountains are literally within cycling distance. And the town is home to a synchrotron, The International School for Advanced Studies (also home to a prestigious science communication Master’s school, from which most young italian science journalists emerge), and the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics.
Possibly, if you are a scientist, you are family-oriented, you like your sailing and mountain biking…you may really want to check Trieste out.
To me, this was a particularly pleasing visit as I met a friend I had not been in touch with for six years. Francesco and his girlfriend, Maria Teresa, took me around sightseeing. The nicest experience was probably eating out in an osmitza. You drive up the mountains, in the bi-lingual Italian/Slovenian areas, and stop by in someone’s backyard, sitting on wooden benches, trying out some home-made wine, delicatessen, local cheese. We were ten, and paid 6 (six) euros each. A nice aspect of osmitza is that they are not always in the same places. One day it may be here, another day it may be somewhere else. All you need to do is to follow the movable, temporary road signs, decorated with fresh leaves just to remind you that the osmitza you are going to is fresh. How cool is that.
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Science in the Bel Paese by Massimo Pinto
Italy has a serious scientific research excellence problem at home. Why there are so few foreign scientists in Italian Labs? Is the Italian academic job ladder closed to foreigners? Something new is happening, just may be, and I feel an urge to report it.
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Osmitza!
- Date:
- Wednesday, 02 Jul y 2008 - 08:22 UTC
I wrote this blog entry on my pocket notebook first, sipping a microbrewery-made red beer, in a bar next to the bicycle repair shop, where they were taking care of my Alan Shorter_. That is far away from drafting on a pocket PC!
!http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3020/26306132568c34249ae5.jpg!Last updated: Wednesday, 02 Jul 2008 - 08:22 UTC
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Comments
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Good!
not to mention that you can recognize them from the branches hooked up near the door as sign…
and to remember such good fellows grown their scientific respectability there, as Piero Carninci, and those that are still working (Del Sal, Schneider)
Quite interesting profile, Massimo!
I will ad you to my profile
ciao
I was in Trieste last summar. I found it quite annoying though, but I find Italy generally annoying. It’s just too busy and too disorganized (German speaking here). But yes, the landscape is really great.
Ha!
Ciao Palmiro, nice to see you here.
Sabine, we Italians are just the same ol’ bunch of nutters, aren’t we??
But I do think Trieste has an extra dimension, and that is being so close to Slovenia and Croatia, which possibly makes it less typical Italian.
Perhaps Trieste has more to offer to a family than to a teen-ager…
Right, we’re going to have to start up a Nature Network Trieste. I want to go visit!
Osmitza… is it Slovenian word? I do not speak that language, but as a Slavonian (Czech) I understand something like “eight” (in Czech “osm”, the 8 things = “osmice” – the Czech “c” is pronounced like German “z”).
Writing a blog post with old-fashioned pen and paper has a nice romantic feel to it. I can almost picture the candlelight you sat by to write it. Love the picture. You’re way more devoted to your blog than me. If I was in the mountains in Italy with old friends and eating delicious food, I don’t think I would be thinking about my blog! :)
Boris, I was told it’s Slovenian, yes, and it comes from 8 days per month. I am going to translate from here. According to rules set by the Ausburgs, licenses were given to those who had some businesses, including selling of their own wine, for up to 8 days a month. As a consequence, you won’t always find the same Osmitzas open on the same days. This rota prompted for the use of temporary and movable sign posts. You just go there, and find your way to see who’s open.
Corie, I was way too drunk, at the osmitza, to write so neatly and get distracted to my blog…I wrote those notes yesterday in Rome, sipping a beer in a pedestrian area (Romantic, still).
Thanks!
You’re most welcome.
Matt:Trieste has a hub but nobody is in it yet. I am going to pester some friends there.