Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I wonder how much syrup McD's buys. Gotta be a HUGE number.

We were in Trieste a few years ago. The people there are very proud of their Austrian heritage.

Beautiful place if you can ever find time to visit.

It's also interesting how cities used to battle, like Florence and Siena. It would be like Miami and Cincy going to war.

Trieste was a lot more important as part of Austria-Hungary. 

As a peninsula, Italy obviously has a lot of coastal/port cities so Trieste is just one of many such cities. Before WWI Trieste was one of (I think) only two major ports of the Hapsburg empire along with Fiume. It was also the home port of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

The Austro-Hungarian Navy is interesting mostly because it produced Admiral Horty (sp?). He ended up as "regent" of Hungry between the wars and during most of WWII. This is somewhat comical because Hungry was a landlocked country ruled by an Admiral with no navy who was a Regent with no King. Now that is some weird history.

The mind-boggling gearing on the Napier Deltic engine. The Deltic is a British engine famous for its complexity and ambitiousness. It is a triangle-shaped, opposed-piston, valveless, supercharged, two-stroke diesel engine with a displacement of 88.2 litres (5,382 cu in). The engine was essentially comprised of three opposed engines, with a crankshaft in each corner, forming a triangle. This eliminated the need for cylinder heads thus reducing weight. Each cylinder contained two pistons, with a total of 18 cylinders and 36 pistons. It produced a maximum of 2,500 hp. Development began in the 1940s, and over its career it powered locomotives and naval vessels, including a few German Schnellboots.

I'd rather spend 30 days in Provence and Tuscany than 30 days on a cruise.

Yeah, different things for us.  This is probably out last chance to "see Asia" to much of an extent.