Roman Amphitheatre, Trieste, Italy

The Teatro Romano in Trieste was built in the first century BC and expanded in the second century AD. It had seats for from 3,500 to 6,000 visitors. It was probably built by the Trieste Quinto Petronio Modesto , prosecutor Emperor Trajan.

Over the centuries, the theater was left under the houses that were built above. Considered lost, it was identified in 1814 and unearthed in 1938 during the demolition of this part of the old city. The statues and inscriptions found in the excavations are kept in the San Guisto Castle.

Nowadays Teatro Romano is still occasionally used for outdoor summer shows.

User Reviews

Joe Croe (12 months ago)
Very interesting, but weird placement of the dumpsters for Aldi

pts pts (12 months ago)
Free to view. Ruins are not large, but show critical elements, like drain pipes, structural supports, the seats, etc. Not a long viewing. Of course, no Roman theater can exist without Cat guardians ( you have to look, but they are there)

Captain Arnie (13 months ago)
Nice to see and its a free piece of History:)

Jeremy Bossy (2 years ago)
Wonderful blast to the past. Place is very accessible to the public so no need to get a tour or ticket to view the place. In the heart of Trieste so it's definitely not out of the way to reach. Place looks to be fairly well preserved as to when it must've been used in the past. Would definitely recommend visiting whenever in Trieste

Sarah Lalor (2 years ago)
A fascinating sight with lots of information boards around including in English. It is a very well maintained site which understandably has restricted access so you can go in at set times but there is plenty to see from the outside. Well worth a visit.

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Photo from Flickr, copyright Frans.Sellies

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Kromeriz Castle and Gardens

Kroměříž stands on the site of an earlier ford across the River Morava. The gardens and castle of Kroměříž are an exceptionally complete and well-preserved example of a European Baroque princely residence and its gardens and described as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The first residence on the site was founded by bishop Stanislas Thurzo in 1497. The building was in a Late Gothic style, with a modicum of Renaissance detail. During the Thirty Years' War, the castle was sacked by the Swedish army (1643).

It was not until 1664 that a bishop from the powerful Liechtenstein family charged architect Filiberto Lucchese with renovating the palace in a Baroque style. The chief monument of Lucchese's work in Kroměříž is the Pleasure Garden in front of the castle. Upon Lucchese's death in 1666, Giovanni Pietro Tencalla completed his work on the formal garden and had the palace rebuilt in a style reminiscent of the Turinese school to which he belonged.

After the castle was gutted by a major fire in March 1752, Bishop Hamilton commissioned two leading imperial artists, Franz Anton Maulbertsch and Josef Stern, arrived at the residence in order to decorate the halls of the palace with their works. In addition to their paintings, the palace still houses an art collection, generally considered the second finest in the country, which includes Titian's last mythological painting, The Flaying of Marsyas. The largest part of the collection was acquired by Bishop Karel in Cologne in 1673. The palace also contains an outstanding musical archive and a library of 33,000 volumes.

UNESCO lists the palace and garden among the World Heritage Sites. As the nomination dossier explains, 'the castle is a good but not outstanding example of a type of aristocratic or princely residence that has survived widely in Europe. The Pleasure Garden, by contrast, is a very rare and largely intact example of a Baroque garden'. Apart from the formal parterres there is also a less formal nineteenth-century English garden, which sustained damage during floods in 1997.

Interiors of the palace were extensively used by Miloš Forman as a stand-in for Vienna's Hofburg Imperial Palace during filming of Amadeus (1984), based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who actually never visited Kroměříž. The main audience chamber was also used in the film Immortal Beloved (1994), in the piano concerto scene.

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