Ulysses

TRIESTE. After my adventure in and around Miramare Castle I had a few hours left in Trieste before my train left for Rome, and so decided to set out in search of the houses and apartments that James Joyce lived in when he based himself in the city.

Thankfully, each of these places is marked with a plaque. With the help of a brochure, I managed to locate five of the fifteen or so buildings where Joyce once resided.

On my way back to the hostel, I came across a bronze statue of the Dubliner. The remarkable thing about this statue was that it was not set above the street, towering high on a plinth above the pedestrians, but was set at street level, on the pavement, among the people (see photos above), in the humble pose of a man merely going about his daily business.

Naturally, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of accosting him for a chat. (For the curious, the subjects of our conversation included the influence of Islamic poetry on eighth century Christendom, Oscar Wilde’s deathbed conversion and Amanda Vanstone’s recent appointment as Australian ambassador to Rome.)