Ciao Amicis!!! What a time we've had in Trieste. I'm going to do a wrap up blog for the past few days to catch you all up on all that we've done. So day two of Trieste consisted of Mad Max as I like to call him magically finding us at the local coffee shop. We were about to head back to the hotel to meet our next hosts from the Rotary Club de Muggia, when this blue eyed guy with a wide smile and his quiet companion showed up at the coffee shop. We had thought they were Rotarians immediately but mistakenly thought they had seen our presentations the night before so we said hi, did the "Ciao, Ciao" thing a few times and then they kept standing there....THATS when we realized they were our hosts. And boy we're we happy to see them!
Mad Max was what we've started to call "cartoon character" engaging. He was super friendly, with a wide smile and a joking streak a mile long. Ferdinando, a past president of the club, was the gentle soul of the group, calm with a sweet smile. We hoped in a van with Mad Max at the helm, speaking very good English no less, and off we went.
First we went to Lipitzan to see the horses - which was super exciting for Tim as he had asked some of our previous hosts about the famous dancing white horses of this area. And dance those horses did for us - gorgeous!! We saw the stalls, the ring, the church of the area and enjoyed our visit immensely. Then we dashed off again with Mad Max to the Orient Express for a great lunch of the food of the area, which these days is considered Slovenia though the town had a very Italian feel to it. Hard to express how astonishing it is to all of us that all of these countries are so close together and borders are crossed within minutes. We have state lines that are easy to get to but somehow it's so different to be in another country where another language is spoken. After the local cuisine we hopped to it again and drove to a Slovenia port area called the Port of Roses. Tim and I immediatly dashed towards the 5 star hotel to see hospitality at it's finest - and it was. The Palace Hotel owned by the Kimpinski grop was an ancient palace for the local nobility that was converted to a hotel some 100+ years ago. Recently the hotel went through a renovation and added a very modern, but very well integrated wing of rooms. And since I took no less than 150 pictures of that hotel during our showroom tour, I will now apologize on behalf of Tim and myself to my team for dragging them along on our fascination with hotels. Our poor team has now seen probably way more hotels then they would ever like to see and heard WAY more discussion of hotel operations and renovations then they would ever want. SORRY Wendy, Kimmie and Dave!!!
Leaving from the port we went to an ancient church on a vista overlooking Trieste and Muggia. The fresco's and some marble engravings inside the church were from the 900s. 900s!!! That is one thing that keeps blowing our minds - the immense history that is centuries and centuries older than ours. After that quick stop (Mad Max kept saying "Allore, we must go" while pointing to his watch at each stop) we headed into the central village of Muggia for a quick walk around the square, which the Team has equated Muggia as their Sausalito while Trieste is their San Francisco - a beautiful seaside village. Then we were off to PastaZara2 factory. There we met up with some Rotaracters, Rotarians, and some Rotary exchange students from high schools in Australia and British Columbia. The tour of the facilities was fascinating - there was so much automation in the factory - they even had computer run forklifts. This was a scene straight out of Terminator - these machines were moving around by themselves. We were told to watch out for them, they would stop when they got too close, but personally those things scared the crap out of me. Giant forklifts moving pallets of pasta around....just by themselves....without humans. CRAZY!! And at the end of the pasta factory tour, we were whisked back from Muggia to central Trieste and back to our hotel. We called out our goodbyes to the lovely Maximillan as we hopped out of the car (who knew there would be so much in and out of minivans on this trip??)
A quick freshen up and then were back at the driving - headed to the Rotary Club de Muggia for our second formal presentation at a Rotary Club. Might I brag again about my team for a moment....they all did awesome!! This was probably our latest night at a Rotary meeting - dinner didn't finish until 10pm and we did our presentations AFTER dinner. I know my head hit the pillow that night but I honestly don't remember sleeping...because we didn't get to sleep for very long....to be continued.....
Mad Max was what we've started to call "cartoon character" engaging. He was super friendly, with a wide smile and a joking streak a mile long. Ferdinando, a past president of the club, was the gentle soul of the group, calm with a sweet smile. We hoped in a van with Mad Max at the helm, speaking very good English no less, and off we went.
First we went to Lipitzan to see the horses - which was super exciting for Tim as he had asked some of our previous hosts about the famous dancing white horses of this area. And dance those horses did for us - gorgeous!! We saw the stalls, the ring, the church of the area and enjoyed our visit immensely. Then we dashed off again with Mad Max to the Orient Express for a great lunch of the food of the area, which these days is considered Slovenia though the town had a very Italian feel to it. Hard to express how astonishing it is to all of us that all of these countries are so close together and borders are crossed within minutes. We have state lines that are easy to get to but somehow it's so different to be in another country where another language is spoken. After the local cuisine we hopped to it again and drove to a Slovenia port area called the Port of Roses. Tim and I immediatly dashed towards the 5 star hotel to see hospitality at it's finest - and it was. The Palace Hotel owned by the Kimpinski grop was an ancient palace for the local nobility that was converted to a hotel some 100+ years ago. Recently the hotel went through a renovation and added a very modern, but very well integrated wing of rooms. And since I took no less than 150 pictures of that hotel during our showroom tour, I will now apologize on behalf of Tim and myself to my team for dragging them along on our fascination with hotels. Our poor team has now seen probably way more hotels then they would ever like to see and heard WAY more discussion of hotel operations and renovations then they would ever want. SORRY Wendy, Kimmie and Dave!!!
Leaving from the port we went to an ancient church on a vista overlooking Trieste and Muggia. The fresco's and some marble engravings inside the church were from the 900s. 900s!!! That is one thing that keeps blowing our minds - the immense history that is centuries and centuries older than ours. After that quick stop (Mad Max kept saying "Allore, we must go" while pointing to his watch at each stop) we headed into the central village of Muggia for a quick walk around the square, which the Team has equated Muggia as their Sausalito while Trieste is their San Francisco - a beautiful seaside village. Then we were off to PastaZara2 factory. There we met up with some Rotaracters, Rotarians, and some Rotary exchange students from high schools in Australia and British Columbia. The tour of the facilities was fascinating - there was so much automation in the factory - they even had computer run forklifts. This was a scene straight out of Terminator - these machines were moving around by themselves. We were told to watch out for them, they would stop when they got too close, but personally those things scared the crap out of me. Giant forklifts moving pallets of pasta around....just by themselves....without humans. CRAZY!! And at the end of the pasta factory tour, we were whisked back from Muggia to central Trieste and back to our hotel. We called out our goodbyes to the lovely Maximillan as we hopped out of the car (who knew there would be so much in and out of minivans on this trip??)
A quick freshen up and then were back at the driving - headed to the Rotary Club de Muggia for our second formal presentation at a Rotary Club. Might I brag again about my team for a moment....they all did awesome!! This was probably our latest night at a Rotary meeting - dinner didn't finish until 10pm and we did our presentations AFTER dinner. I know my head hit the pillow that night but I honestly don't remember sleeping...because we didn't get to sleep for very long....to be continued.....
The horsey's of Lipitzan
Weinerschnitzel - YUM!
The Palace Hotel
Isn't Max a character??!!
Most hostels have a kitchen available for guest use.
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