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Provinces: Trieste, Gorizia, Pordenone, Udine
This region consists of a flat area, close to the Tagliamento river and to the Adriatic coastline, with its plain and lagoons; of a pre-Alpine part with the Carnic Pre-Alps and of an Alpine Part, which includes the Carnic and Julian Alps. Italy's northeastern corner is barely mentioned in most guidebooks and rarely visited even by Italians, which makes it a great place for travelers seeking to leave the beaten path. Whether you like snow-capped mountains, warm sandy beaches, lagoons teeming with water birds, remote alpine hamlets, Roman ruins, palatial country villas, rocky coastal cliffs, bustling international seaports or picturesque fishing villages, your tastes will be thoroughly satisfied in Friuli-Venezia Giulia , one of Italy's most versatile regions. History has marched back and forth across this relatively narrow strip of land. In Roman times it was a vital outpost, with Aquileia serving as a bastion against marauding Gauls. Later, the infamous Huns forced that fortified town's inhabitants to seek refuge by founding the town of Grado on an island in the lagoon, much as the less civilized tribes to the west had built the settlement we now know as Venice. For most of the ensuing centuries, shrewd local leaders managed to keep the region essentially independent. |
