Crossword Genius

Italian port, very French, inspiring one with time on vacation (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

trieste

'italian port' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)

'very french inspiring one with time on vacation' is the wordplay.
'very french' becomes 'tres' ('very' in French).
'inspiring' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'one' becomes 'i' (Roman numeral).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'on vacation' means to remove the middle letters (after the inside letters have vacated the word).
'time' with its centre removed is 'te'.
'tres' enclosing 'i' is 'tries'.
'tries'+'te'='TRIESTE'

(Other definitions for trieste that I've seen before include "European city" , "Italian seaport" , "Italian border city" , "Italy port, near Slovenia" , "somewhere in Italy" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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