THE NAPOLEONIC TRAIL

The Napoleonic Trail offers some of the most beautiful views of the Gulf of Trieste, and presents us with a living rock carved entry point into Trieste: both in fact, if one were to cross it even to reach the city, and symbolically, if we take and turn upside down the old saying about the “imperial route”, which is supposed to be the easiest way to reach the destination.

The myth says that it was supposed to have been built by Napoleon when he marched into Trieste, but unlike the obelisk in the Municipalities, built in gratitude to Emperor Francis I, who actually had the road between the Municipalities and Trieste built, there seems to be no basis for such a venerable name. The official name is Vicentina Strada, after the architect Giacomo Vicentini, who designed the project and began work in 1821, and its final appearance was not given until the 20th century, immediately after the Second World War. But let’s assume, for the sake of a mental exercise, that Napoleonic is indeed Napoleon’s: if it were indeed his, it would not be the “imperial way” of which he speaks—for it is far from the easiest way to reach the goal, i.e., the “imperial way.” Trieste—on the contrary, “the hardest.”

Namely, if I were to start, say, like Rilke, from Devin to São Paulo, and thence on to Kontovel, where Napoleonic begins, I would have to cycle or foot first through the thicket, “dark and cursed,” to reach the obelisk in the Communes, and then I would have had no choice but to descend by the same means to Barkovel or Greta—for the tram is not exactly an option, Because, as we know, it is then disgraziato, so it has the status of a kind of Schrödinger’s cat (now it is, now it is not).

What if, then, the old saying about the “imperial path” as the easiest complement to the new one about the “Napoleonic way” as the most difficult way to reach the goal?

If such a designation were to be adopted, climbing would certainly have to be added to all the means and ways by which the Napoleonic route can be travelled. Napoleonic offers not only some of the most beautiful views of Trieste, but also some of the most beautiful rungs in Europe and, dare I say, the world. For those of you who don’t climb, let me explain that “crossbars” or Traverse is a way of climbing, which differs from more mountaineering rope climbing or sport boulder climbing in that you do not climb up and down, but move to the left or right (depending on your knowledge, the sun, your grips, and sometimes your political orientation).

Contrary to what passers-by think, which climbers have to listen to, especially on sunny weekends, when it gets so crowded that it’s nowhere to be found, the rungs aren’t meant to be “practiced”—that is, here the climbers are just “practicing” for the right thing, and the “real thing” is like a rope—they’re just “the thing itself.” There are not many of us, and yet there are a few of us, who climb nothing but rungs—moreover, no rungs other than Napoleon’s. The difficulty level is as if given by nature or the construction accident of how the rock was mined (by the way: those drilled slits were not made by climbers, but were drilled so that they could put mines in them when forming the road): if you start right down at that single tree that grows from the road right next to the rock, upwards, it builds up quite nicely, Starting with a four, which then grows into a five, and at the breaking point, which you can quickly recognize by the change, it escalates to a six, sometimes even a seven (you can recognize this part by the inscription that gives the name to that part of the crossbar: Berto presente), and reaches its climax at the next breaking point, where the rock completely changes and overhangs (a difficult eight that more experienced climbers than me say you still dream of out of frustration).

There’s something on the (Napoleonic) crossbar that’s soothing. That contact with the rock, which does not change, but always remains the same, identical with itself, so that it requires you to adapt to it if you want to cross it, can be a great, practical, tangible, stony metaphor for that well-known biblical one, which in a reworked form would read: “Rock, give me the power to change things, that I can change, and the wisdom to understand that I can’t change.”

I don’t think I’m the only one who wants to climb Napoleonic for the rest of my life without wishing for higher or stronger goals. There are a few older climbers who are actually a shining example to me when, in their sixties, seventies, they are still climbing the same rungs—perhaps not with the same strength and tenacity as when they were young—and yet with the same perseverance, and above all, with pleasure. It is true that there is a similar communist – in the noblest sense of the word – solidarity among climbers as there is between smokers, namely, that we like to exchange cigarettes, magnesium, snacks, advice, but you cannot help but notice that class, age, linguistic and, last but not least, national differences cross even the Napoleonic rungs themselves (the groups are grouped together as everywhere else, and therefore according to the Empedoclian principle: equal with equal, unequal with unequal).

What I want to say, in short, is that the purpose of the Napoleonic crossbar is an end in itself, because the point is not to climb it and go promiscuously to the next one, but to climb it. You know the ones a meme about Robin coming up to Batman saying “I’m done with Hegel”, whereupon Batman puts an earring on him, accompanied by the wise words: “No one ‘finishes’ Hegel!” Well, the same is true in our case: no one “finishes” the Napoleonic crossbar.