Many non-Italians don't know that this Vienna-by-the-sea, the last stop before Italy kisses Slovenia, is part of il bel paese. Located 99 miles east of Venice, Trieste served as a vital seaport for the Austro-Hungarian Empire but fell into limbo between the world wars - it wasn't formally turned over to Italy until 1954. Yet this tiny pocket of coastal history has made a name for itself, from the Piazza Unità d’Italia (Europe’s largest seafront square) to the Caffè San Marco, a favorite haunt of twentieth-century writers. James Joyce lived in Trieste off and on for years, and trailblazing transgender author Jan Morris visited as a soldier in 1946, returning years later to laud this “hallucinatory city” in her writings.