Friuli-Venezia Giulia

Trieste has a surly grace. If you like it, it's like a sour and voracious bad boy, with blue eyes and hands too big to give a flower;   this is how Umberto Saba described his Trieste, a city that has captivated poets and writers. Italo Svevo, James Joyce, Umberto Saba: we still find them in the streets, where bronze statues have been erected depicting them walking or gazing out to sea. It's no wonder this place inspires profound feelings; to truly understand it, you need to look out over the Gulf of Trieste, as Miramare Castle does, or spread your arms in Piazza Unità d'Italia to feel the thrill of immensity, in the largest square in Europe. Leaving the city behind, you walk toward the Barcola waterfront and then, wearing comfortable shoes, you wander the trails of the Val Rosandra Nature Reserve, to admire the stunning scenery created by the Rosandra River: an artist's signature on the canvas of the Grand Canyon, culminating in its thirty-meter-high waterfalls. Friuli is a land of encounters, as its capital city, Gorizia, demonstrates, where churches, squares, and palaces tell the eternal story of love and hate between the Latin and Germanic worlds. The karst rocks of Friuli have carved their way into the soul, giving each traveler a piece of themselves and telling of the atrocious battles on the battlefields of the First World War, a wound this land refuses to hide. It can still be seen, deep and bleeding, in the Great War Park. Sea, mountains, lakes, forests, rivers, villages, and cities. Crossing the border of Friuli Venezia Giulia means choosing to suspend disbelief: at the end of your journey, you won't know if you were dreaming or if a treasure chest filled with so many real treasures actually exists.