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On my last day in Trieste, I took bus #20 from the train station and, after a half hour of winding through the city’s southern suburbs, arrived in the town of Muggia. The last stop in Italy before reaching the Slovenian border, Muggia sits on the bay overlooking a distant Trieste. With its abundance of Venetian architecture, the town exudes a certain charm that blends the essence of Italy with a hint of foreign exoticism.

First, I strolled through the old city center, a tiny maze of narrow alleys lined with bars, bakeries, and butcher shops. The hub was Piazza Marconi, bordered by pastel-colored stucco buildings and starring the Venetian-Gothic Duomo dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo with its striking trilobed façade and rose window.

Across the square sat the yellow and orange Palazzo dei Rettori, current home of Muggia’s town hall. Like many Venetian buildings in the region, it featured a stone relief of the winged lion of Saint Mark, but this one struck me as particularly bizarre—the lion was sticking out his tongue, as if disgusted with his former ruling empire.

Nearby on Via Oberdan, I passed the Casa Veneta, a 15th-century Venetian-style building with white-trimmed Venetian-Gothic windows. From there, I left the city center and hiked uphill to Muggia Vecchia (“old Muggia”) to see the Romanesque church Santa Maria Assunta. Across the street from the church was a small archeological site featuring medieval ruins.

Once down the hill again, I made my way to the waterfront. Backed by more pastel houses, the harbor retained the atmosphere of an old-world fishing port. Hungry for lunch and intrigued by the sign hanging out front, I ducked into a restaurant called Lilibontempo Trattoria Ex-Hitler. (It turns out the previous owner bore a marked resemblance to the Nazi dictator.) There was only one other table seated: two American men who had both ordered spaghetti alla marinara. The waitress told me a boat of American tourists had just docked in Trieste, and that it was a fairly unusual occurrence to have any American guests there.

I was invited to help myself to a lavish buffet of seafood salads, and so I started with samples of salmon, sarde in saor, octopus salad, and shrimp in salsa rosa. For my main course, since I always seem to have trouble making a decision, I ordered the “Gran Piatto Istria,” a selection of local seafood specialties that included calamari, sardoni panati (breaded sardines), ribaltavapori fritti (miniscule fried fish), seppioline (small cuttlefish), and scampi grigliati (grilled langoustine). The plate also included sides of insalata russa (mayo-based potato salad) and rice.

Except for the crispy and addictive ribaltavapori, the meal was not particularly memorable. But I was delighted when owner Lili Bontempo came over to chat, and I persuaded her to give me her recipes for jota (bean and sauerkraut soup) and brodetto di pesce (seafood stew).