Visiting GO2025!
At the moment of writing, I’m staying in Pula, Croatia; a tranquil, blissful little town full of history. Very quiet, even dead during winter, Pula was the perfect spot for me to take a break from the intense life in Lisbon, and to focus on my first novel.
Pula is on the tip of Istria, a region of Croatia full of history, a crossroad of cultures, traditions, and nationalities. It is close to Trieste, itself an inner world full of surprises, so patriotic, yet so different from the rest of Italy. And it was in Trieste that I saw a billboard about the 2025 edition of the European Capital of Culture. This is a touring event, where each year, a European city is chosen to host several cultural events, exhibitions and initiatives. I had already witnessed this extravaganza of art, food, culture already in Valletta, Malta, during the 2018 edition. I was living there and it felt great.
For 2025, the committee decided to choose a city that stretches across two nations, Italy and Slovenia: Gorizia/Nova Gorica.
The Wall Before the Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, to prevent the mass exodus of East Germans fleeing to the West.
Gorizia was cut between the Liberal world and the Communist world already in 1947, when the Gorizia Wall was built. Yugoslavia’s new leader Tito wanted to take over the whole city to finish the business, but negotiations prevented further post-war escalations.
That’s how a small town of 30,000 people remained cut between two nations and two worlds. Unlike East Germany, Yugoslavia didn’t waste time, and by 1947, the wall was ready. More than a proper wall, it was a fence, so thin that the two sides could even meet for a volleyball game!
This photo was taken from an iconic place that today is a symbol of unity; Europe Square, a square crossed by a free border, between two sister nations that rest within the European Union. This can look like a utopia if you were one of those guys playing volleyball across the wall.
Most of the historical centre of Gorizia ended within Italy, while the fancy Austrian-style train station and most of the natural attractions ended on the Slovenian side. With many governmental and historical buildings gone, the Yugolsavian authorities had to replicate much of the city’s core facilities on their side. That’s why they renamed it “Nova Gorica”, with Nova meaning ‘New’.
My Adventure in the City of Unity!
If during the Cold War Gorizia was a symbol of division, in the 21st century it became a symbol of unity. Today, the two halves of the city created one administrative area that allows them to jointly manage things like public transport. That’s why I could easily reach my hostel in Nova Gorica while arriving at the Italian train station. Buses run smoothly from station to station.
You walk around and you see Italian cars driving flawlessly into Slovenia and Slovenian cars driving flawlessly into Italy.
The only force left to shake this harmony is the Italian police. For some reason they keep checking random people asking them for documents. And they even look at you as a potential suspect! My case was particularly interesting for the Italian police. I’m Italian but hold a Maltese driving license and my passport as well was renewed at the Italian embassy in Malta. My documents are quite unusual. It’s normal that common, young cops start asking questions. I got checked and questioned every day of my border crossing.
It’s a pity they’re doing this just when the city is the European Capital of Culture and the theme is about free borders. Even at my hostel, the owner was complaining about this. She’s a local. Her hostel is 200 meters from the border. It’s obvious she crosses the line even multiple times a day. They constantly ask her for ID. She told me that until last year it wasn’t like that. Nobody was checking the border. The old check-point was a mere tourist attraction reminiscent of sad days.
I can imagine who had such an idea, but I prefer not to mention him…
The Exhibitions
Now, from the cultural side, what can I say? The weather was not kind. I stayed there 2 days and the rain basically never stopped. This lowered my expectations and removed any chance of seeing outdoor events.
Nevertheless, I had the privilege of seeing an exhibition about Andy Warhol. To be honest, I was never well educated about Warhol and pop art. Not because of utter ignorance or laziness, but more because of lacking time. Culture needs time, but a day is made only of 24 hours and there is no way to stretch this span
I like colorful patterns and I’ve always been a big fan of the pop art flourishing during the 1960s. I miss that style and I hope I was there when it was happening.
Art is meant to shock and one thing that did this to me was at Wahrol’s self-portrait. He stated that he was all about appearance, because behind the artist persona there was nothing. Maybe he alluded to the fact that he might have been more of an art businessman than a real artist? That’s what some speculate.
The exhibition has its peak in album covers Warhol designed for Velvet Underground, Debby Harry, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones and other music icons.
Another exhibition that remained in my heart was dedicated to the Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti. This was extremely touching as Ungaretti’s life is permanently linked to the area of Gorizia. He spent the entirety of World War I on the front, fighting for Italy against the Austrians. He saw death and misery for years, breathing them.
It's like beingin the autumnon the treesthe leaves
The exhibition centers around local painters that created touching drawings about Ungaretti’s work and life. I liked mostly this, which transmit a sense of serenity, but also of immensity:
When you take the wrong train…
The next day, it was time to go back to Trieste, where I should have taken a bus to Pula, my current stable base.
My train was departing from the Italian station at 9:38. I decided to wake up at 7:00 in order to have all the time to have my breakfast and walk to the bus. I showed up at the bus station at 8:15. I was so confident because I didn’t consider that on Sunday buses are not keen on working across the border. The time-table for the INT bus said that on Sunday transport passed already at 8:00 and would pass again only at 9:30. Shit! Impossible to reach the train station in 8 minutes!
It was cold, it was raining, and no Bolt or Uber was available. What to do? I still had my own legs, and a proper jacket to protect me from the rain. So I started running. I had like 1 hour to cross the whole city to reach the station.
While approaching the border, I planned to pass through Europe square as it was the only spot that the Italian cops weren’t checking. I’m sure they would have checked me if they saw me running, under the rain, like a migrant…
My call worked, nobody was in Europe Square, all clear.
While well inside the Italian part, a merciful bus came to rescue to help me cover the last kilometers. I was exhausted, because running with a full stomach is never nice, and because a backpack makes everything 10x harder. The bus stopped in front of the station at 9:40. “Still worth checking, maybe the train is late…” I thought. And so it was! The monitor said “Trieste 9:42 - Rail 2”. I could still catch it. I jumped down the stairs leaving behind two cops that were asking for documents from a passenger. Against any prediction, I reached the train just as the doors were shutting. I sat for a moment to relax, but then decided to ask another passenger to confirm this was the right train to Trieste. “No, this is bound to Venice! The one for Trieste is behind!” her answer froze me. You must be kidding me… And the train began to move…
This wrong train was bound for Venice. OK, I had to come up with a solution quickly. As a digital nomad working in crypto, it can happen to work on Sundays, and that day I was on shift from 11:00… I had to find a suitable spot to work or I’d have been in big trouble. I was getting angry and desperate, but luckily I remember my classes on Mindfulness. “OK, breathe in, breathe out, and acknowledge you are angry. Let anger rise and go. Accept the situation. Good. Now that you have accepted the situation, what is the best outcome you get from here?”
When I was angry, the instinct told me to simply jump off at the first stop and catch another train back to the opposite direction. However, thinking more lucidly, that would have been a huge risk.
“Next stop is Cormos, a small village in the middle of nowhere. You don’t know the area, there is nothing and nowhere to work from there, and you don’t know if the next trains to Trieste are stopping there and when. It’s even raining.”
So I decided to check what was the next big city the train was bound for. The monitor said Udine. Cool, Udine is one of the most productive cities in Italy. For sure, they must have bars, cafes, even shopping malls open on Sunday all day long. I stuck for Udine then. Once I arrived in the city, I immediately asked Perplexity to recommend me coworking spaces and cafes. None of the options looked viable, so I asked for Plan C, a McDonald’s in a shopping mall. That worked. There was an entire food court with plenty of seats.
As usual, McDonald’s public WiFi didn’t work. Some moment of panic, but I realized Caffe Oro had a “guest” connection. I ordered a coffee and then asked for the password. The bartender’s answer really froze me, “I don’t remember it…”
Desperation began to cripple in. I just confirmed the coffee, while my brain was still trying to work out a solution. Mobile hotspot was not a solution, as my phone gets drained with it and I still haven’t developed the habit to use power banks. If the situation wasn’t perilous enough, the food court didn’t offer any electrical plug…
While my brain was in the clouds, another lady approached the cashier and said, with a big smile, “I know the password! It’s ‘gandalf2017’, all small cases!”
Like the wizard from Lord of the Rings. Since then, I owe Tolkien something. Never been a fan of the genre, but I guess it’s time I become one…
And that’s how I worked from a shopping mall in Udine, on a random, rainy Sunday, in March 2025!
The rest is history. Finished to work at 19:00, after spending my breaks with pizza, panzerotti, coffee, and cheesecake from the various restaurants. Such a surreal culinary tour!
This is what I learned from this adventure:
- Never give up, even when everything seems lost
- Anger and despair are useless when the unexpected happens
- Even when the situation is objectively fucked up, you can still aim for the best outcome possible, for the lowest level of damage and disruption
- I can take critical decisions fast and into the right direction (literally)
This would be a story worthy of LinkedIn, what do you think?