Also, some parts of switzerland are geography more south Europe than others,: depending on which side of the Alps you are, things can be quite different climatically. I grew up in Ticino; for all intents and purposes climatically it's like the rest of northern italy.
Milano is at almost exactly the same latitude as Trieste. Perhaps you're trying to make some point that Trieste is on the adriatic sea so it feels more like southern europe.
My point was not climatic though, but as we were talking about sand dust carried by the wind, the presence of Alps makes definitely a bigger difference than 50km (the south-north distance from the line Trieste-Milano to the swiss border).
The same Alps are what make Ticino climatically quite diatinct from the northern part of switzerland (the mountains affecting climate)
