“Do you like Elon Musk?”
Even in Northern Italy, so close to the Doge’s Palace and so far from DOGE, it’s a loaded query. I ducked the question, noting that the answer is more complicated than a couple years ago. My host in Udine offered an impenetrable expression in return and proceeded to play a video of Musk discussing one of his favorite topics, immigration and national identity.
How did we even get here? It seemed like we were slaloming around the typical pleasantries in the hallway, tossing around generalities about Udine and my walk, before the conversation suddenly took a turn.
“15 years ago,” my host said, “this place was completely different.” He could walk around Udine all day, he explained, and he would never see an African person here. Now, he added, these guys are sitting out there in the park all day, selling drugs. “I saw an Italian woman sitting next to them,” he bemoaned, “her face ragged and skinny from all the drugs.” He pulled out his phone. “Look,” he said, “I’ll show you.” He pulled up Airbnb to illustrate the direct impact of these changes upon his livelihood. For all the positive scores in every other category, the “location” feedback was a full level lower. “Look at this comment,” he urged. One respondent noted that the piazza seemed rather scruffy and potentially unsafe. “When I booked,” I replied, “the main concern I saw was the noise caused by proximity to the train station–don’t you think that has an impact on the location score?”
That’s when we shifted over to Elon Musk.
“A country is not its geography. A country is its people,” Musk argues. “This is a fundamental concept that is truly obvious.” He continues, “If you took the people of Italy and you teleported the people of Italy to some part of the United States, it would still be Italy. But if you teleported a bunch of people from some other part of the world to Italy, [where the original Italians had just teleported away,] then the geographic region would no longer be Italy. It would be that other country.”
My host looked at me with “checkmate” in his eyes, as if he had sized me up as a pro-immigration, bleeding-heart, liberal, and Musk had just offered an indisputable argument in response.
It was about that time I realized: my host, so fervently concerned with the state of Italian identity, was actually Croatian. He moved here 15 years ago.
From Udine, my route led southward, continuing off-route in order to complete the transition from the Cammino di Sant’Antonio to the Cammino Via Flavia. Much of today’s walk overlapped with a popular biking route, linking Salzburg, Austria and Gorizia on the Italian/Slovenian border. While that meant less time spent walking on busy roads, it still involved long stretches directly parallel to those roads.
On the bright side, it led me through two of the “most beautiful towns” in Italy, Palmanova and Strassoldo. I had been particularly excited about Palmanova, where I had originally planned to overnight. The fortress town is in the shape of a nine-point star; even on Google Maps, it looks magnificent, though an image search is even better. Alas, Palmanova offered another lesson on perspective. From above, the town is remarkable; at ground level, the walls are too long, the streets too broad, the central piazza too massive to offer any hint of that larger, defining shape.
Palmanova, quite understandably, was born out of the threat of war, even if it came immediately on the heels of a peace treaty. After the Treaty of Worms was signed between the Republic of Venice and Austria in 1521, both sides quickly realized that the settlement offered little in the realm of sustainable stability. As such, Venice sought to shore up its eastern border with a new fortress, optimized for battle. As beautiful as it looks from above today, this was designed as an engine of death. Nonetheless, it fell to the Austrians in 1797 through deception, not conquest, and over the subsequent 17 years it passed to the French, back to the Austrians, back to the French, and then once more to the Austrians. Finally, in 1866, it became part of Italy.
Strassoldo is a much smaller place, reminiscent in my view of Verrières on the Via Podiensis. The small cluster of stone houses, adorned with ivy and immersed within deep tree cover, is resplendent with charm, offering the kind of intimacy lacking in Palmanova. While its origins are disputed, the presence of “strassa,” the German word for “road” in the name, speaks to its likely Germanic roots, and over the centuries that followed it gave birth to a series of important officials in the Austro-Hungarian army. Not until 1918 did the town change hands, joining Italy.
While these visits came later, the overarching history was on my mind when talking with my host in Udine. “It seems difficult to be arguing for the importance of national purity,” I said, “when we’re in a place that is filled with people of Austrian, Slovenian, Balkan history. This hasn’t been Italy for very long. Rather, it has been a center of cultural intersection.”
My host was undeterred. “There’s a difference,” he said, “between someone who moves fifty miles, as opposed to five thousand.” He quickly took pains to argue that this is not about race; “I have no problem with people who come here to work, who follow the law.” Rather, it’s those people in the park, dealing drugs, slothfully taking from the state without giving back, or–he later added–trying to “impose Sharia law,” that aggravate him.
In 1964, the Italian birth rate was 2.6 children per women. By 2023, it had dropped to 1.2. Still, I don’t think that’s responsible for the population decline in Aquileia, the end of my first day in this section, and the official endpoint of the Cammino Via Flavia. Today, the small town has just over 3000 residents; in the 2nd century AD, it may have reached 100,000 people, as one of the foremost cities in the Roman Empire. Aquileia was founded in 181 BC with one specific purpose: to fend off the barbarians, keeping Rome safe from those uncivilized outsiders. Even as Rome ebbed, Aquileia thrived as a center of the growing Christian movement. Saint Mark is said to have proselytized here, and the rise of Bishop Theodore in the early 4th century saw the construction of its great church. While most of that is long gone, replaced with the towering medieval basilica, the remarkable fresco floor survives, filling the base of the basilica.
So fleeting, glory. Attila the Hun rampaged through Aquileia and is said to have salted the very earth along the way. A tug-of-war followed, as Lombards and Byzantines vied for control of the once-great city, and as the years passed, they were succeeded by Hungarian raiders and the Holy Roman Empire. Like Strassoldo, it didn’t become part of Italy until after World War I, just over a century ago.
That night, Pope Leo XIV was confirmed, and the hostel was suddenly abuzz with activity. A woman in the hallway, learning I was American, swept in for a hug, so overwhelmed was she by this most tangential of connections to the new pontiff.
The last stage of the Cammino Via Flavia, alas, includes its least interesting walking, and as a consequence this was my third consecutive day of pavement-heavy stages. Most appealing was an hour-long stretch on a causeway, linking the mainland with the island of Grado, a popular holiday spot on the Adriatic. After that southward march, the route turned eastward, mostly paralleling the highway for the first half of the walk, before veering south again. On the plus side, this meant a break from most of the cars, and some pleasant coastal views. It came at a cost, though, adding a not-insignificant number of kilometers to the walk, all of which were given back later on, when it was necessary to rejoin the highway in order to make a bridge crossing. For the many bicyclists whipping past, it was probably good riding; on foot, I confess, it got a little tedious. That might be Day 80 on the road talking, too.
At one point, a pack of four bicyclists stopped alongside me. An older man, with a full white beard and sunglasses, spoke to me, his Austrian accent giving away his origins in the first sentence: “Did we see you two days ago in Udine?” I couldn’t be sure–all bikers look pretty much the same when they pass by in a blur–but I acknowledged that I had, in fact, been in Udine two days earlier. “And we saw you in Aquileia yesterday, as well.” Again, I affirmed my presence there. “And today we see you here. So where will we see you tomorrow?” We compared travel itineraries, during which they learned I was American, at which point they enthusiastically commented on the new pope. What a 180 this all was–suddenly, Europeans were excited to talk with an American about the good news! I asked the bikers for their final destination, and their spokesman replied, “Gorizia. It’s a town located right on the border between Italy and Slovenia, sitting in both countries. It’s a model of what Europe should be. Borderless.” They pedaled onward.
All mild frustrations with the route were forgiven upon arrival at Isola della Cona, a nature preserve set on a narrow peninsula, jutting into the far-northern edge of the Adriatic. Along with a visitor center, a network of footpaths, and a series of observation posts, the reserve includes a hostel, for walkers and other visitors alike. I had it to myself, like most every other place. The reserve centers on a wetland, spanning 2,338 hectares, with small islands of solid ground interspersed with riverways. A variety of birds, including regal swans, verbose geese, and active ducks, milled around the water, while turtles sunned themselves on the banks. White horses, raised in a paddock on site, merrily munched away at the grass in the midst of all that avian activity.
Of all the 286 animal species listed on Isola della Cona’s website, 240 are identified as migratory. Not too many permanent, long-term residents here, either.
I departed early the following morning, the birds reveling in their peaceful surroundings as the sun rose over the Adriatic. Within just a couple hours of quiet walking along backroads, I reached Monfalcone, the second largest town along the Via Flavia. Unlike many Italian towns, it’s growing, having recently passed 30,000 people thanks to the employment opportunities offered by the booming shipyard. However, those jobs haven’t been filled by Italians; on the contrary, a sizable number of skilled immigrants have come to Monfalcone from Bangladesh–nearly 6600 people. All told, almost a third of Monfalcone’s population is foreign born. This was immediately evident as I walked through the town’s antique market, where perhaps half the early-morning patrons were women in saree, a sight quite distinct from anything I’ve seen elsewhere along my walk.
While Bangladeshi immigrants have been moving to Monfalcone for twenty years, finding the town to be hospitable and a good place to live, a year ago the town’s new mayor, Anna Maria Cisint, banned prayer in Muslim community centers. While that law has subsequently been overturned by the courts, the mayor has also removed benches from the main square–responding to the same kinds of concerns my Udine host raised–and banned women from wearing “burkinis” at the beach. She even banned cricket! In a BBC interview, Cisint stated that “she refuses to grant the Bangladeshis the privilege to play their national sport,” as “[t]hey’ve given nothing to this city, to our community. Zero. They are free to go and play cricket anywhere else… outside of Monfalcone.”
“I understand your concerns about crime and assimilation,” I said to my host. “But at the same time, I’ve walked through towns in the USA, in places like Iowa and Idaho, where it’s only the presence of immigrants that keeps them alive, unlike so many other places that have died.” The opposition to Cisint makes a similar case about Monfalcone. A councilor in the regional government said, “If it wasn’t for the contribution of the foreign community, Monfalcone would become a ghost town,” while the director of the shipyard stated that, “We are not able to find trained workers. In Europe it’s very difficult to find young people who want to work in a shipyard.”
“Given the plummeting birth rate,” I asked my host, “what other options are there?” “We just need to have more children,” he replied. “Incentivize it. Pay Italians to have children. The only reason they don’t have kids is because of economics.”
From Monfalcone, the Via Flavia climbs into the gentle, tree-covered hills behind the train station. A peaceful setting with pleasant walking, this also preserves an important remnant of a very different time. In the midst of the trail, a small clearing provides access to an excavated trench, surviving from World War I, as Italian and Austrian forces once again vied over the border in this northeastern corner of the peninsula. For two full years, the two countries battled it out, with the Italians initially pushing back the Austrians and establishing Monfalcone as a backline station, complete with field hospitals, cemeteries, and operational headquarters. In late 1917, though, the Austro-Hungarian Empire turned the tables on the Italians, forcing a withdrawal from the area. Back and forth, back and forth they went.
The loveliest stretch of the Via Flavia begins at this point, first climbing through the hills and then joining a coastal track, sitting perhaps 100m above the sea level and offering consistently magnificent views of the Adriatic and beyond. In Duino, a small town with its own designer castle, I joined a flood of weekenders, out for a Saturday morning stroll, and even if they filled the trail and slowed me down at times, it was hard to argue with their taste. Still, even this sudden surge in traffic lasted no longer than a half-km from Duino; after that, the trail was mine again.
Finally, the trail turned sharply downhill, plunging through a train station and onward to Miramare Castle, perhaps Trieste’s most famous site. Ferdinand Maximilian, the younger brother of the Austrian Emperor, ordered the castle’s construction in 1856. Situated on a rocky spur, jutting out into the Adriatic, it’s visible from all along the coast, and a delight from any angle. Alas, the castle was finished after Ferdinand had already departed to become Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, a reign that would end abruptly with his execution in 1867. Other Habsburgs would make use of the castle as a vacation spot in the years that followed; of note, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand spent a month there in 1914, immediately before a disappointing trip of his own to Sarajevo.
In the years leading to World War II, the castle was repurposed as a school for the training of German officers, during their occupation of Trieste. Later on, as the Allies continued their northward march, the castle passed from Kiwis to Brits and finally Americans. Not until 1955 was it in Italian hands.
From there, the Via Flavia proceeds directly on the coast, following a pedestrian promenade that parallels a local road. On this lovely Saturday, it doubled as a beach of sorts, lined with sunbathing Italians. Trieste took shape before me, its regal buildings in all manner of pastels gleaming beneath the bright afternoon sky.
Jan Morris, one of the great travel writers of the 20th century, first brought Trieste to my attention with her book, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere. In the introduction, she describes how Trieste leaves visitors with “a vague sense of mystery,” adding that the “very geographical situation of the city is suggestive. It always seems to be on a fold in the map, hemmed-in, hole-in-corner. A narrow coastal strip, never more than a few miles wild, is all that connects it with the body of Italy. For the rest it is closely enveloped by Slav territories: the frontier of Slovenia runs five miles from the city center, Croatia begins ten miles to the south, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Hungary are all within a day’s drive.”
During Trieste’s peak, as the main port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it rose to global prominence. And reflecting on the empire in those years, Morris asserts that its most “appealing aspect” was its “European cosmopolitanism.” While she acknowledges that it “had few black, brown, or yellow subjects,” she offers that Trieste “contained within itself half the peoples of Europe. It was multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-faith.” Not only did foreigners live in Trieste; they thrived. “The annals of nineteenth-century Trieste,” Morris explains, “are full of foreigners who made themselves rich and eminent here.” She spotlights the German Baron Karl Ludwig von Bruck, the Egyptian Antonio Cassis, the Greek shipowner Demetrio Carciotti, the Englishman George Hepburn, the Morpurgos–a powerful Jewish family, the Armenian Giustinette clan, and the American John Allen. Influential residents, all.
“I don’t know,” I said to my Udine host, “it seems awfully expensive to sufficiently incentivize childbirth. Kids are expensive. Immigrants seem like much better value. Every economic study in the USA indicates that the net impact of immigration is tremendously positive.” I acknowledged that the picture may be more complicated in Italy; the USA has some advantages, given the pull traditionally exerted by American universities to draw high-skill immigrants into the country, and we similarly don’t offer as many social services. My host was unconvinced: “You can’t trust any of those numbers; they can just make up whatever they want.” At that point, I disengaged, and began looking for a polite way to end the conversation.
Leaving Trieste, the Via Flavia climbs past the historic center, clustered around the cathedral and castle on a small hilltop, and then pushes back into the karst on a bike track. Eventually, the pavement stopped, and then so did the track, giving way to a series of footpaths and dirt roads, as the route looped along that narrow band of Italy. The town of Muggia sits directly across the bay from Trieste, and its quaint center makes for a popular weekend spot for city folk, taking the passenger boat over for a visit. The ruins of the original medieval town, Muggia Vecchia, are a steep climb uphill, sprinkled around a sanctuary featuring some gorgeous frescoes. The priest, Don Andrea, has become an enthusiastic advocate for the Via Flavia, to the point that he has recently renovated the parish’s Foresteria, making it into a donation-based hostel for pilgrims. The Slovenian border and the official beginning of the Via Flavia sits just 3km away.
As I pushed on towards the border and the end of my walk, I couldn’t help but think about immigration, and about how many Americans and Italians alike are fighting desperately to preserve something that never was, that indisputably is. In 1861, Massimo d’Azeglio declared, “We have made Italy; now we must make Italians,” and it’s fair to question if they ever succeeded. Identity on the Italian peninsula has long been defined by Campanilismo, which involves the “exaggerated and exclusive” attachment to one’s town, often accompanied by “hostility towards different countries and customs.” “Campanile” is the Italian word for bell tower, and thus the term underscores that inward looking parochialism. While American political party affiliation in recent years has been compared to that of sports fandom, Campanilismo suggests this has long been the Italian way of life, and you can see it reflected in the violent clashes that sometimes erupt between rival Italian soccer clubs.
And yet, for all of that, isn’t it rather ludicrous to suggest that an “Italian” culture or identity doesn’t exist? 60 million tourists travel to Italy annually; a tenth of those are Americans. We come for the beautiful sights, of course, but we are also drawn to the Italian way of life, the dolce far niente, the pasta and gelato, the lingering cappuccino in a piazza, the communities gathered together around the church.
My Udine host and I see eye to eye on this point: the world would be all the poorer if it were to lose that. Where he has gone wrong, as have so many–on both the left and right, I think, is in grabbing at the first compelling, easy answer to come along to this complex problem, and ascribing far too much legitimacy to an individual simply because he has enjoyed success in an entirely different field.
In theory, America has a substantial advantage over Italy in this realm. Our national identity is the cultural equivalent of polytheism–elastic, accommodating, easy to fit in different viewpoints and traditions. When you hold up diversity as a defining quality, as opposed to a singular homogeneity, that creates an antifragile structure that can grow over time and evolve as conditions shift. Even when we acknowledge that the history of the Italian peninsula is remarkably diverse in its own way, Italian identity in the 21st century is inevitably going to begin from a narrower range of qualities than the American equivalent, and it is likely more quick to feel imperiled by foreign ways of being. How to protect what is beloved about a cultural identity, though, without pushing it to a mythic level of purity that has never existed?
I crossed the border. Nobody was watching. A few people were over on the coast, sunbathing. Some bicyclists were grabbing a drink at a nearby bar. I took a picture. Not a single security official was anywhere close. My walk was over.
