We dipped in and out of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region over Spring and Summer as we made our way around Europe, enjoying a ski in the Dolomites and exploring pretty Sacile and magnificent Trieste.
The Dolomites: Corvara in Alta Badia
We stayed in the Alta Badia region in early March to ski the famous South Tyrolean Dolomites. This town is very cosmopolitan with a mix of German, Italian and Ladin cultures and languages.
Alta Badia region is in the southern part of the Val Badia valley, and has six small villages: Corvara, Colfosco, La Villa, San Cassiano (had a great live music night here) and La Val – we stayed in the town of Corvara in a delightful hotel called Gran Fanes (named after the neighbouring nature park of Fanes-Senes-Braies). Access to the impressive Dolomite peaks such as the Sella massif, Sassongher, Sas dla Crusc – Santa Croce were all easy from here as was jumping on the Sella Ronda and the Grand Guerre ski routes, so it was a top spot to stay for skiing. The town is small but has a great Italian delicatessen and wine store, a couple of affordable pizza-pasta restaurants, a supermarket and a couple of fancy restaurants and hotels! If you’d like to read more about our week skiing the Dolomites click here.
Pretty canal town, Sacile
We had a stopover in the neat little canal town on our way from Milan to Slovenia. Eveything was closed when we arrive on a hot sunny Sunday but once the sun went down the town started to come alive with bars by the canal, a concert in the square and restaurants dotted around the many different canals that wind around town. We had a drink at Pizziwine as the sun went down over the canal then a divine dinner at La Piole – a wine bar where they match your wine to the tapas dishes you choose (or for Jamie to the whole rack of pork ribs). This is a very pretty town to wander around, especially on a hot summer’s night under the midnight blue twilight sky.
Tantalising Trieste
Situated on the Adriatic sea and surrounded by Slovenia, Trieste is the last town we visited in Italy in late July. It was oh so hot and everyone had abandoned to town for the beach so we got to walk around the empty squares and really admire the beautiful architecture.
The enormous Piazza Dell’Unità d’Italia, which is Italy’s largest sea-facing piazza was empty so we got a good look at the Palazzo del Municipio, and the Palace and walked in th shade where we could find it, down the many pretty streets lined with beautiful limestone buildings carved from the Karst-stone surrounding mountains. We saw a lot of cool bars and restaurants, that were closed for the summer break but definitely thought we’d love to go back and explore this town when it is a little cooler. On our way out of town we called into the lovely Castella di Miramar about ten minutes from Treiste and walked around the lush gardens admiring the pretty porticos and terraced gardens.
