In 1904, the great Irish writer James Joyce decided at the age of 22 to settle as an English teacher in Trieste. When the train stopped in Ljubljana on the way to Trieste, Joyce and his wife got out thinking they were at the finish line. They only realized the mistake when the train took off. Without money, the youngsters slept the night in the park in front of the Ljubljana railway station.

As Trieste was a multicultural city at that time, Joyce soon met Slovene friends. He was also enchanted by the surrounding Karst villages mostly inhabited by Slovenes. In Trieste, where he lived intermittently until 1920, he published some of his most important works, such as A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. At the time, he was already preparing his most famous novel, Ulysses.