Museums in Trieste – In And Out Slovenia

Hi guys,

Once again, we meet in Trieste.
This city has a lot of got museums, art exhibitions, operas, concerts etc …
The culture scene is very alive here.

Today, I will show you 2 of the museums that I really really like in Trieste.
The Revoltella Museum and the Museum of Oriental Art.

Let me start with the museum that impressed me the most -> The Revoltela Museum.

View of the Revoltella Museum from the street *Via Armando Diaz*.

This museum is absolutly fantastic.
It is located in the next to Piazza Venezia, just 100 meters away from the sea.

**Piazza Venezia** with the statue of **Maximilian I** (archduke of Austria). The white building on the left is the museum.

The palace that house the museum belonged to Baron Pasquale Revoltella (1795-1869).
He was an entrepreneur and Italian financier who got extremely wealthy after setting up a timber and grain import company.
Revoltella was very involved in the opening of the Suez Canal which he believed to be crucial to developing Trieste’s sea trade economy.
In 1861, he was nominated vice-president of the Universal Company of the Suez Canal.
The Baron bequeathed his palace with all the furnitures, books and art collection it contained to the city of Trieste.
Founded in 1872 as a modern art gallery, this museum is now an institution.
It is without a doubt one of the top 3 museums in Trieste.

I went to visit this museum for the first time in 2018 and it was amazing.
The palace is absolutly gorgeous both inside and outside.
The architecture is both classic and very modern, especially on the top floor of the building.
I think they kept the structure of the original palace and added more space made of wood,
concrete and transparent glasses on the top floor of the building and a few other places.

On the ground floor, you’ll be able to see a gorgeous library with all the books the belonged to Pasquale Revoltella.
You’ll also see a beautiful spiral staircase next to a fountain with marble statues.

Desk and chair that belonged to **Pasquale Revoltella**.

Old coach exhibited on the ground floor near the spiral staircase.

Staircase and a marble fountain on the ground floor of the museum.

On the first floor, you’ll see many large and luxurious rooms.
The most beautiful of them is probably the reception room with a very long table surrounded by yellow chairs.

Large reception room on the the first floor.

The last floor is also very nice.
Modern design, a lot of space and a lot of natural light.
It felt really great walking around and watching statues and painting with this natural light.

One of the room on the second floor of the museum.

Sculpture -> “**The Smile**” (1910) by **Ruggero Rovan** (Trieste 1877-1965).

Painting -> “**Horsewoman**” (1932) by **Oscar Hermann Lamb** (Trieste 1876 – Vienna 1947)

Painting -> “**The Window**” (1930) by **Felipe Carena** (Torino 1877 – Venezia 1966).

Bronze ->”**The Emancipation of The Black Man**” (1873) by **Francesco Pezzicar** (Duino 1831 – Trieste 1890)

Last but not least, the rooftop.
Absolutly fanstatic ! You must not miss that.
Go outside and you’ll be amazed. Believe me !
Fantastic view over Trieste and the San Giusto hill on one side.

View from the rooftop of the building looking towards the *San Giusto* hill.

We can see the **San Giusto Castle** at the top of *San Giusto* hill (in the background behing the bell tower).

On the other side, a kick-ass view over the sea and the marina of Trieste and La Lanterna (former Lighthouse of Trieste).

View of the Marina of Trieste from the rooftop.

Great view of the marina and the sea. The brown building near the marina is a food hall called **Eataly**.

We see now the coastline under the **Karst Plateau**. Further out on that plateau, there is **Slovenia**.

And you can enjoy all that for just 7 €.
It really doesn’t get any better than that !

Now come with me and let us go a little further out (towards Piazza Unita d’Italia)
to discover the second museum on my list -> The Museum of Oriental Art.

Entrance of the **Museum of Oriental Art**.

If it wasn’t for a nice woman that I met in the parking lot of the Lipica Stud Farm, near Sežana (not far in Slovenia),
I probably wouldn’t have known about this museum.
We talked a bit with that woman in the parking lot after visiting the Stud Farm
and we exchanged tips about good places to see and visit in Slovenia and in Trieste.
She recommended me to go visit the Museum of Oriental Art in Trieste.
A few weeks later, I followed her advice and I went to visit the museum.

The museum is situated in a mid-eighteenth-century patrician house called Palazzetto Leo.
Since 2001, the building has been housing the Asian art collections of the Civic Museums of History and Art,
including objetcs mainly from Japan and China.

A part of the ground floor (to the right), is dedicated to temporary exhibition.
The other part exhibitss Asian statues and weapons and other objetcs.

Things get more interesting on the first and second floor.
I really liked the 2 samurai armors and the buddha statues.

2 Samurai Armors from the “**Tenshō**” era (1573-1591).

The only tiny drawback for me was than all the little white papers
(on the glass) explaining the story of the objects exhibited were written in Italian only.
It was a bit of a letdown but it’s no big deal. Art and Beauty speaks for themselves.

One important info about this museum -> The entrance is free of charge.
Though the museum is not very big, I spend 1h30 inside to see everything.
I recommend that you spend at least 1 hour inside to see most of the objects that are exhibited.

My tips for these 2 museums:

1/ Go eat/drink inside the food hall Eataly after visting the Revoltella Museum.
2/ Go drink a tea/coffee at Caffè degli Specchi after visiting the Museum of Oriental Art.
3/ Go buy an ice cream at Gelateria Jazzin after visiting the Museum of Oriental Art.