Caserma Square and the Balkan Hotel

A view of Piazza della Caserma, today Piazza Dalmazia, animated by a horse-drawn omnibus and elegant passers-by in Belle Époque dress. On the left stands the imposing Balkan Hotel, home of the Narodni dom, beside the kiosk and fountain at the centre of the square. The postcard captures the cosmopolitan atmosphere of early twentieth-century Trieste, a crossroads of trade and cultures. A precious record of an urban space now profoundly transformed.