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The lands<br />
of <strong>Carnia</strong><br />
1
Houses in stone and wood, ancient carnival<br />
rituals, a cuisine imbued with flavours lost<br />
elsewhere, and above all the people, who in Forni<br />
di Sopra, Ovaro, Raveo, Sauris and Sutrio help you<br />
rediscover the slow rhythm of times gone by.<br />
Authentic architecture<br />
H<br />
olidaying in one of the “borghi<br />
autentici” (authentic villages) in<br />
Friuli Venezia Giulia, in Forni di<br />
Sopra, Raveo, Sauris, Sutrio and Ovaro,<br />
means being hosted by a rare quality of<br />
people, people who love welcoming others<br />
into their community and helping them<br />
rediscover the slow rhythms of times gone<br />
by. People, places, flavours and traditions<br />
all speak of a magically preserved<br />
authenticity. Forni di Sopra, dominated<br />
by the majestic peaks of the Dolomites,<br />
welcomes you into its spacious<br />
courtyards and narrow lanes<br />
featuring rural houses in<br />
stone and wood, with wide<br />
upstair landings where hay<br />
was once dried. Raveo,<br />
nestled in a sunny dell<br />
at the foot of Col Gentile,<br />
exudes the charm of<br />
an authentic village.<br />
Sapori di <strong>Carnia</strong>, its<br />
village food festival,<br />
celebrates the<br />
flavours of a cuisine<br />
imbued with the culture<br />
and the history of these<br />
places. In Sauris, a marvellous<br />
village of German origin, you will be<br />
welcomed into mountain-style dwellings<br />
built in stone and wood. The influence<br />
of the German culture can be seen in the<br />
village’s countless traditions and folk<br />
festivals, including the Carnival, one of<br />
the oldest across the Alps. Finally, a stroll<br />
through the lanes in Sutrio, a beautiful<br />
mountain village, will lead you to a host<br />
of workshops of skilled artisans who,<br />
during the Magia del Legno festival each<br />
September, demonstrate their great<br />
creativity and skill in the courtyards of the<br />
houses: the same courtyards where the<br />
nativity scenes made by the marangons,<br />
the local wood sculptors, are carefully<br />
displayed every year at Christmas.<br />
3
The taste<br />
of tradition<br />
Sapori di <strong>Carnia</strong>: a festival of the flavours of a land where nature reigns<br />
at the dining table too. Simple, genuine ingredients give life to ancient<br />
dishes or to creatively revised recipes. From the wild herbs, which season<br />
omelettes and gnocchi, to the cjarsòns, frico and...<br />
M<br />
outh-watering and strictly seasonal,<br />
Carnic cuisine uses genuine, natural<br />
ingredients, which the mountain<br />
climate imbues with a special, richer flavour.<br />
This typical cuisine faithfully mirrors its<br />
people, and was developed over the centuries<br />
and naturally conserved in valleys, rivers and<br />
woods which were more or less hidden by a<br />
backdrop of mountains. However it is also a<br />
renewed cuisine which adds an original touch<br />
to traditional dishes, embracing the evolution<br />
of taste. For lovers of genuine food, <strong>Carnia</strong> is<br />
a trove to discover.<br />
In Sauris/Zahre, give in to the<br />
temptation of its exquisite<br />
prosciutto crudo: this cured ham<br />
has been produced from time<br />
immemorial, using original<br />
techniques and is lightly<br />
smoked to give it an<br />
unmistakably sweet flavour.<br />
In July, there is a two-weekend<br />
festival in its honour: a must for<br />
gourmets. The famed hams are ideally served<br />
with the beers brewed in the Sauris di Sopra<br />
beer factory.<br />
The delicious Carnic herb-based cuisine is<br />
also of very ancient tradition. In spring, amid<br />
the mountains of Forni di Sopra, there is a<br />
joyous flourishing of wild herbs and flowers,<br />
such as silene, mountain asparagus and<br />
chicory; these are the basic ingredients for a<br />
number of fanciful dishes that can be tasted<br />
along itineraries calling in at famed<br />
restaurants. And to delight all gourmets, every<br />
year during the <strong>Carnia</strong> in Tavola food festival,<br />
a number of famous restaurants propose their<br />
own menu, each based on a different dish. It<br />
is hard to resist the temptations of the palate:<br />
you can try the most traditional local dishes,<br />
such as cjarsòns (ravioli with a sweet filling),<br />
frico con polenta (a fragrant dish of malga<br />
cheese fried with potato and served with<br />
polenta), pork shops with savoy cabbage,<br />
muset e brovade (cotechino served with sour<br />
turnip marinated in marc), gnocchi alla<br />
carnica or apple gnocchi...<br />
4<br />
5
Ye olde<br />
shopping<br />
The people from <strong>Carnia</strong> hold an ancient wisdom in their hands,<br />
expressed in handicrafts made in wood, ceramic, iron and stone.<br />
It is thread through the delicate weaving of fabrics and also pampers<br />
your feet in the typical velvet scarpetz.<br />
T<br />
he people from <strong>Carnia</strong> have not<br />
only managed to preserve the<br />
beauty of its nature and reap<br />
the best fruits of its land.<br />
They have also used their hands to<br />
shape materials into expressive<br />
handicrafts. The best places for<br />
discovering and seeing this creativity<br />
express itself is in the craftsmen’s<br />
workshops. Here the main<br />
materials used are wood, ceramic,<br />
iron, marble and stone.<br />
Weaving is another of their skills.<br />
Woodworking is undoubtedly the<br />
most widespread craft. Sutrio,<br />
one of the most charming<br />
villages in <strong>Carnia</strong>, is known as<br />
the village of the marangons,<br />
local carpenters and wood<br />
sculptors. Theirs is an ancient art<br />
handed down from generation to<br />
generation, over the centuries; still<br />
today you can purchase furniture<br />
carved in ancient decorative styles,<br />
wooden homeware, statues and basreliefs.<br />
But it is surprising to learn that <strong>Carnia</strong><br />
also boasts an ancient skill in weaving.<br />
Heirs of a tradition whose roots date<br />
back to the eighteenth century, the<br />
workshops thread valuable original<br />
patterns into their fabrics and weave<br />
soft rugs and items of clothing.<br />
Potters are busy workers too, and you<br />
may well come across workshops,<br />
perhaps squeezed in between the arches<br />
of the typical Carnic edifices, where you<br />
can admire their handicrafts to the<br />
background hum of the potter’s wheel.<br />
The characteristic velvet footwear<br />
decorated in floral embroidery called<br />
scarpetz are also handmade in <strong>Carnia</strong>.<br />
With these on your feet, you can let<br />
your mind wander through the magic<br />
atmospheres of these lands, as you look<br />
forward to visiting them once again.<br />
6<br />
7
From the Parco delle Colline<br />
Carniche, with its gentle trails<br />
to follow on foot, horseback<br />
or on a mountain bike, to the<br />
Parco Naturale delle Dolomiti<br />
Friulane, where trekking and<br />
mountaineering are superb<br />
between the majestic heights.<br />
Many tiny treasures are<br />
hidden amid the mountains,<br />
waterfalls and canyons, right<br />
down as far as the lake on<br />
Volaia...<br />
Places<br />
and delig hts of nature<br />
T<br />
he Parco Intercomunale delle Colline Carniche (park of the carnic hills) owes its name<br />
to the gentle sloping heights interweaving a charming sunlit hilly backdrop covered<br />
in meadows and woodlands. It is the ideal place for cultural and nature excursions<br />
for all ages. Some of its trails may be followed on a mountain bike or on horseback,<br />
starting out from the stables situated inside the Pineta di Villa Santina. The Parco Naturale<br />
delle Dolomiti Friulane is a protected area featuring Dolomitic peaks and splendid natural<br />
backdrops. A genuine paradise for excursions, trekking and mountaineering. Indeed <strong>Carnia</strong><br />
offers dozens of sites of remarkable environmental and natural value: lakes, waterfalls,<br />
canyons: little known but enchanting and spectacular treasures hidden among the<br />
mountains. There are exciting excursions in the Canyon del Torrente Vinadia above Villa<br />
Santina and in the Forra de Las Callas: here the Chiarsò stream flows down to an<br />
impenetrable gorge, which you can glimpse from a path dug into the overhanging rock.<br />
The Lake and Oasis of Bordaglia, lying in<br />
the meadows at the foot of Monte Volaia,<br />
are two of the most spectacular places<br />
in Friuli Venezia Giulia, inhabited by<br />
chamois, roe deer, marmots and<br />
a rich avifauna.<br />
8<br />
9
C<br />
arnia pulsates with a world of folklore<br />
customs and usages offering images,<br />
sounds and fragrances which become<br />
engraved in your memory. Like, for example,<br />
the ancestral agricultural rituals tied to the<br />
seasons, celebrated many times a year in<br />
traditional festivals and sagras. Then there<br />
are the rituals for the Epiphany, for Carnival<br />
and for the harvest. If you stroll through the<br />
<strong>Carnia</strong> villages at Christmas time, watch out<br />
for las cidulas, blazing wooden discs that<br />
village youngsters launch into the dark<br />
night with messages of goodwill.<br />
In Sauris, legendary figures<br />
accompany the oldest carnival<br />
in the Alps. There are two main characters<br />
featured in the event: the Kheirar, king of<br />
the masks whose duty it is to lead the<br />
festival and the Rolar, who announces the<br />
beginning of the masquerade. There are also<br />
a host of legends passed down from one<br />
generation to the next, folk tales where fact<br />
and fiction, common sense and superstition<br />
merge together.<br />
As you walk through the woods, the silence<br />
might be broken by rustling or whispering:<br />
so take a quick look around - you may be<br />
lucky enough to catch sight of the Sbilfs,<br />
comical, spiteful elfins inhabiting the<br />
<strong>Carnia</strong> forests.<br />
Ancestral agricultural rituals tied to the flow of the<br />
seasons and to daily life in this magical mountain<br />
microcosm have nurtured folklore customs which are<br />
still very much alive today, particularly at Epiphany,<br />
Carnival time and harvest time. With blazing discs<br />
thrown from the hillsides and elfins in the woods.<br />
Once upon a time…<br />
10<br />
11
Clocks borne of an eighteenth century tradition, fifteenthcentury<br />
“blacksmiths”, mills still working as they did in the<br />
seventeenth century. An ancient world, relived in the Carnic<br />
museums, touches modern-day society with its wisdom,<br />
filling the air with melodious notes of fortepianos and<br />
harpsichords and warming kitchens with the fogolâr.<br />
Traces of culture<br />
R<br />
ediscover the ancient traditions and<br />
understand the real essence of the<br />
Carnic culture, by visiting the large<br />
number of museums scattered throughout<br />
the area. The most important of these is<br />
undoubtedly the Museo delle arti e tradizioni<br />
popolari Michele Gortani in Tolmezzo.<br />
This museum of folk arts and traditions has<br />
faithfully reproduced a typical Carnic<br />
house; with its Friulian kitchen and<br />
characteristic fogolâr, it is a symbol of this<br />
land, whose image it can evoke worldwide.<br />
Stop off in Illegio, at the Mulin dal Flec, to<br />
see how grain was once milled.<br />
Or visit the Farie di Checo in Cercivento, a<br />
fifteenth-century factory which depicts the<br />
typical blacksmith’s workshop and shows<br />
the whole iron working process. At the<br />
Mozartina, in Paularo, visitors are<br />
completely enveloped in music in this<br />
‘live’ museum, with the notes of<br />
fortepianos, harpsichords and violins<br />
belonging to a very rich private collection<br />
of ancient musical instruments. The Museo<br />
dell’Orologeria pesarina is a most unusual<br />
clockmaking museum situated in Pesariis,<br />
one of the most characteristic villages in<br />
<strong>Carnia</strong>, brought to fame by its unusual<br />
craftsmen’s trade dating back to the<br />
eighteenth century: the production<br />
of clocks, still sold all over Europe.<br />
12 13
Nature and... wellbeing<br />
In the snowy winter and the bright green summer, outdoor<br />
activities are the ideal way for living in harmony in such<br />
an expressive natural setting. Travel on foot, skis,<br />
horseback or on a bicycle, then treat yourself to<br />
wonderful breaks in bivouacs, refuges and malghe,<br />
before immerging yourself in the regenerating Terme<br />
di Arta spa.<br />
T<br />
here are two colours for sports in<br />
<strong>Carnia</strong>: white and green, colours<br />
which flow one into the other with<br />
the changing seasons. White prevails on ski<br />
slopes and the mountains in winter while<br />
green takes over in spring and summer,<br />
with countless shades colouring the<br />
meadows and trees.<br />
Practising sports in <strong>Carnia</strong> means living<br />
in harmony with nature. Any outdoor sport<br />
is in close contact with the unspoilt<br />
environment, as are outdoor leisure<br />
activities. Bivouacs, refuges and malghe<br />
are scattered along hundreds of paths to<br />
welcome and provide refreshments for<br />
ramblers. <strong>Carnia</strong> offers exciting horseback<br />
rides too, along the trails and in the<br />
trenches of the front line of the Great War<br />
or along the Via delle Malghe, an itinerary<br />
linking the mountain dairies, where you<br />
can discover the flavours of these lands.<br />
And at the end of a tiring day outdoors,<br />
there is nothing better than treating<br />
yourself to a few hours in the Terme di<br />
Arta spa, the ideal place for spending a<br />
regenerating wellbeing holiday for getting<br />
your body back into shape or simply for<br />
relaxing in an unspoilt natural environment.<br />
14<br />
15
AUSTRIA<br />
CARNIA<br />
TARVISIO<br />
SLOVENIA<br />
PORDENONE<br />
UDINE<br />
GORIZIA<br />
TRIESTE<br />
Easy to reach, hard to forget<br />
TURISMO FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA<br />
Piazza Manin, 10 loc. Passariano<br />
33033 Codroipo (Ud) - Italy<br />
tel. +39 0432 815111<br />
fax +39 0432 815199<br />
info@turismo.fvg.it<br />
TEL. 0039 0432 734100<br />
DSF design / photo: Da Pozzo, Museo delle Arti Popolari Michele Gortani / printed by: Graphart<br />
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