The imperial procession traveled along Corso Francesco Giuseppe, now Corso Italia. Opened after 1860 to connect the new Southern Station to the city center, it had become one of Gorizia's main thoroughfares.

As Carl von Czoernig wrote in 1873, it had "a wide street with pedestrian lanes, lined on both sides with two rows of plane trees, and a very pleasant, straight stretch for almost a quarter of an hour." Beautiful villas with gardens soon began to spring up along both sides of the street, many of which still survive.

On the right, at number 205, stands the Art Nouveau-style house built in the 1920s for the Nale brothers. On the opposite side, at number 226, stands the original Villino Vervega, commissioned by a wealthy and eccentric Swiss banker in neo-Gothic style. Immediately afterward, you'll notice the "Villa Venezia," built in 1898 by industrialist Arturo Polli, with its tower featuring arched windows. Further on, at number 214, is Villa Bladig, with its distinctive pinnacle gable reminiscent of Viennese architecture. The space now occupied by the Remembrance Park was once home to the city cemetery, enclosed by a boundary wall.