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South of the Alps - 13: Trieste - Barcolana Special (50 p.)

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Roni

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19 Mar 2007
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Vienna, Austria
Hi,



To the previous part of the series:
South of the Alps - 12: Landscapes around Verona (50 p.)




As mentioned before, I made it one last time to Italy in 2019. A friend and I had talked about it for years, now we wanted to see the event in person: via Udine, we reached Trieste at half past one.
Sad comparison of Piazza Oberdan on May 10 2015 when the tram still ran.
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Our destination was the 51st Barcolana, the largest sailing regatta in the world featuring about 2000 participating boats. Named after the suburb Barcola (Slovenian "Barkovlje"):

This year it is supposed to happen again:

The port of Trieste is turned into a huge fair, but you can circumvent the masses of people if you want.
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Piazza Unità d'Italia with town hall. The yacht "Way of Life" of Slovenian owner Gašper Vinčec to the right was about to win the main race the following day.
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Main thing in Italy: look cool! ;)
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No boots on deck...
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Evening mood near the fortress which had been reserved for a private group.
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View of boats, the concrete church and lighthouse already known from previous reports, as well as some railway bits like a "Caimano" class E656 next to the Generali lion logo.
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Smaller floodlit races around the harbour in the evening.
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The famous sail training vessel "Amerigo Vespucci" attended the event, lit in tricolore colours.
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We rambled about the city. Places to eat were mostly fully reserved, but we found a nice little tavern serving homemade food a few streets away from the centre.
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October 13 2019

Next morning, 9 o'clock, at the Faro della Vittoria:

I walked around the corner to the large Barcola viaduct for R 1824/1894 Ljubljana - Trieste - Udine.
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InterCityNotte 777 Roma Termini - Trieste Centrale, obviously conveying a driving van trailer.
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Miramare Castle to the left.
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Participants had gathered from all over the world, like "New Zealand Endeavor" which had won the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1993/94. Sadly - as you can see - the wind was calm.
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Regionale Veloce 2210 towards Venice appeared at 9:19 a.m. while many yachts were leaving port.
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The lighthouse opened at 9:30, so we queued to be among the first allowed up, as there is only a limited amount of visitors to the platform. It was also a special occasion, as the lighthouse is not accessible to the public this time of day otherwise during the year.
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Exactly as we reached the top, a special hauled by class D445 passed by meeting Frecciarossa 9726 Trieste - Turin at 9:40 a.m.
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Made it in time: View at the bay of Barcola with boats waiting for the start of the race and Frecciarossa highspeed EMU.

The panorama in larger resolution:

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Real meeting Frecciarossa - RV 2205 from Venice. The harbour and park to the left were our next destination.
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All trains came within eleven minutes, then we had to make way for the next visitors. Once again it was all very lucky, as no trains were scheduled afterwards.
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We marched past the viaduct to Barcola harbour.
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The start of the race was signalled by cannon salutes and ship's horns at 10:30. In mid-October it was still so warm, some people swam in the sea.
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The fire brigade cannot afford to be less stylish than the police - jetskis for everyone!
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Of course nothing much happened due to the dead calm, but after a while you noticed the boats moving away. You could follow everything via GPS app. All in all it is a very impressive sight, and I can recommend experiencing it in person one day.
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We went shopping and ate in the city, then returned home via Udine in the evening.
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May 1 2019

Back on the Easter trip I had also stayed overnight at Trieste, only the port was muuuuuch quieter...
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View of station square in October after it had been renewed.
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R 20957 arrived at 8:32 a.m. from Udine.
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R 1824 from Ljubljana followed punctually at 8:38. Afterwards, I mixed up the trains and first boarded the one to Udine, only noticing it last second but just in time. At 9:02, we left the station and turned towards Villa Opicina at Aurisina - a first for me on board a regular service.
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On August 11 2019, I went on an early excursion with Miško. We tried out different views around the Vrhnika viaduct, here a "time flow" version of R 1824 with motorway after six o'clock.
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On May 1 2019, I reached Ljubljana shortly before noon by cooperative CAF EMU.
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Linking cities.
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Something green is lurking in the distance - perhaps a preview of the next report part?
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Overview of now mainly clean SŽ-vehicles. Even 661-032 (GM #26225 / built 1960) joined in after almost 60 years of active duty at Ljubljana.
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