One reaches Trieste by driving along the Coast Road, flanked on one side by the ridge of the Karstic plateau, on the other by the wide expanse of the Gulf where the view extends as far as the coast of Istria. Passing by Miramare Castle one reaches the city quickly along a sea front lined with elegant and refined buildings of the C19th, in the Neo - Classical magnificence, which date from the radical redesigning of the city ordered by Maria Teresa of Austria.