FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA

At the northeastern tip of Italy, where the country meets Slovenia and Croatia, overlooking the Gulf of Trieste At the foot of the Julian and Carnic Alps, Friuli-Venezia Giulia is a border region in the richest and most precious sense of the word. It is a land where Italianness intertwines with the Central European soul of Trieste—the city of Svevo, Joyce, and Saba, of literary cafés and a wind, the Bora, that makes it unique in the world—with the cultural roots of Friuli, and the Slovenian traditions of the Alpine valleys. A small but extraordinarily dense region: with history, with white wines among the world's finest, and with landscapes ranging from the Grado lagoon to the high mountain pastures.

Beaches and lagoon

The Friuli-Venezia Giulia coast extends from the mouth of the Tagliamento River to the Gulf of Trieste, offering a wide variety of coastal landscapes. Grado, the Island of the Sun, is a jewel of fine sandy beaches, shallow, warm waters, and a historic center with extraordinarily beautiful early Christian mosaics. Lignano Sabbiadoro, with over six kilometers of beaches and high-quality services, is one of the most popular seaside resorts in the northern Adriatic. The Foce dell'Isonzo Nature Reserve and the Marano Lagoon, with their reed beds, sandbanks, and historic fishermen's huts, are natural environments of great value for aquatic and migratory fauna.

Landscapes

The Trieste and Gorizia Karst is a karst plateau of white limestone where the landscape opens up into sinkholes, caves, and swallow holes of extraordinary geological variety: the Grotta Gigante, with its enormous underground chambers, is one of the largest tourist caves in the world. The Julian Alps, with the Julian Prealps Natural Park and the Predil and Fusine lakes, offer Alpine landscapes of rare beauty just a stone's throw from the Slovenian border. The Carnic Alps, with Forni di Sopra, Sappada, and the Friulian Dolomites Park, complete a rich mountain territory. The vineyards of the Collio and Colli Orientali del Friuli, between Cormòns and Cividale del Friuli, produce world-famous white wines such as Friulano, Ribolla Gialla, and Malvasia Istriana.