by MK
Every Saturday we’re spotlighting remarkable local females who could change the way we look at the world. This Saturday is Lucia Varlotta’s turn, an American digital nomad who found herself living her dreams in the birth city of her grandmother.
Are you originally from Trieste?
No, but my connection with Trieste spans three generations starting with my Bisnonna Lucia, my namesake. We were born 99 years and 1 day apart, me in Los Angeles, California and her in Pola, Istria.
That’s amazing!
After settling in Trieste post World War I to find work, she mirrored the city itself by showing incredible resilience and independence in the face of much adversity. She crossed paths with Gabrielle D’Annunzio during the movement to liberate Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia). She hid Jews in her home in a German-occupied Trieste during World War II, almost being caught on some occasions. And she was a single mother in the 1930s who bought herself a wedding ring to stave off judgement. She raised my nonna Maria by herself in the attic of a building two blocks away from where I’m now living in Borgo Teresiano.
She sounds like she was an amazing woman.
Definitely. My ties to the city were passed on through my Nonna Maria. Despite growing up in Trieste with the immensely difficult challenges of World War II, from keeping the secret of Jewish exiles in her home as a little girl, losing childhood friends in the bombings of her Borgo Teresiano neighborhood to the hunger that many other Triestini struggled with, she only ever spoke of the city with affection. At age 20 in 1950, she met my nonno Armando, a Southern Italian turned American soldier stationed in Trieste when it was a Free Territory controlled by Americans, British and Yugoslavia. They courted on the beaches of Barcola, and eventually married at Chiesa di San Bartolomeo on Viale Miramare which I now pass by every time I go for a dip in the sea.
What a story!
A year later, my father was born here. My family then left Trieste following my nonno Armando’s military postings and eventually immigrated to Los Angeles, where I was born and raised. But they continued to visit throughout the years and passed on plenty of fond stories to the younger generations.
Was it your plan to live in Trieste?
I never thought I would get to call Trieste home, until last year. During a pandemic-inspired sabbatical with my now-husband (who just so happens to be Milanese), we traveled around Italy for a few months to visit his family and explore new places. Even though it wasn’t part of our original itinerary, we decided to visit Trieste on a whim because of my family history with the city. And we completely fell in love with the ornate Austro-Hungarian architecture set against the backdrop of the bright blue Adriatic, the dinners of fresh seafood paired with sparkling Prosecco from the green hills of Friuli and the smell of sea spray and pine meeting on the sun-warmed pavement of Barcola. I immediately understood the adoration towards Trieste that I’d always heard in my families’ stories and felt an intense connection to the city as I toured the sites where my family once lived. And on this chance visit, we also happened to run into the editor of this very magazine who introduced us to an exciting community of other travelers and expats. We made plans to move here shortly after.
