On just about any list of must-see places in Italy, Trieste isn’t usually in the top 10. But one visit to this elegant city, with its broad, palace-lined piazzas, impressive literary chops, and fascinating history, and you’ll soon see what the rest of the world is missing out on.

Facing the northernmost Adriatic Sea, Trieste is in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy, set on a sliver of land just a few kilometers wide and surrounded on two sides by Slovenia. For more than 500 years, it was one of the most strategically important cities for the Habsburg Dynasty, and later, a crucial seaport for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. During the Cold War, Trieste’s location just outside the Iron Curtain made it a hotbed for espionage, defections, smuggling, and other international intrigues.