Wasn't this well somewhere else? Fashion designer Sibilla Pavenstedt pauses in front of the famous Fontana dei Quattro Continenti, once built to commemorate the Trieste Free Port, and tries to put her childhood memories in perspective. "This is where I hid with my grandfather when we observed that special woman who dressed extravagantly every day and theatrically threw flowers into this fountain," she says. Born in Bremen, 57, she shares a special quality with the people of this city: the almost manic desire to rummage through one's own history, whether it was dreamlike or traumatic. Trieste offers both.

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