Lo scrigno. Friuli Venezia Giulia

Perhaps the renowned Italian writer Ippolito Nievo was exaggerating somewhat when, driven by a love for his native north-eastern Italy, he defined Friuli Venezia Giulia as ‘The Compendium of the Universe’. Not everything can be found in the region, but a lot, yes. Lying between the Friulan Dolomites, the Carnian Alps and the Adriatic Sea, between the River Livenza in the west and the Carso area in the east, split into two by the flowing Tagliamento and within slightly more than 7,800 square kilometres (only a third of the area of Lombardy or Sardinia) in Friuli Venezia Giulia we can find stark, imposing mountains, green valleys and deep gorges, meandering rivers and tumbling mountain torrents, springs where the water re-emerges from underground, lakes, hills, vast areas of rocks and pebbles, the ‘Magredi’ and even swampland, and sleepy lagoons, long beaches with golden sand and steep white cliffs overlooking the blue sea. And then, to make such differing landscapes even more beautiful, there are fir trees, beech, chestnut and marine pines, rare orchids and reeds, and eagles, heron, trout, deer, badgers, wild boar and even some passing bears, all in all, a range of flora and fauna which, if not complete, offers so much from Mother Nature’s inexhaustible imagination. It truly seems that she brought together in a small space, all the varieties, a seemingly continuous showcase for Man.