Between the Mountains and the Sea – Friuli Venezia Giulia

In the autumn of 2018, a storm named Vaia tore through the alpine forests of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. For hours, hurricane-force winds howled across the mountains, and when they passed, they left behind a graveyard of trees — millions of them felled, roots exposed to the sky. For the people of this northeastern corner of Italy, the question was not only how to recover, but how to honor what was lost.

From this devastation, a story of renewal took root. At Il Fogolar 1905 , housed within the historic Hotel La’ di Moret in Udine, chef Stefano Basello turned to an old recipe born of hardship. He crafted flour from spruce bark, echoing an anti-hunger tradition from the last century. The result? Pancor — a fragrant, earthy bread from Carnia and varhackara, a rustic, smoked pesto of lard and speck, born in the small, German-speaking mountain village of Timau. In Basello’s hands, the forest was not mourned, but transformed — flavor as remembrance and worthy of a visit.

Further south, on the white stone cliffs overlooking the Gulf of Trieste, another kind of transformation has unfolded in recent years. Portopiccolo rose from an abandoned limestone quarry, reborn with careful attention to environmental architecture and energy sustainability. Today, it’s a quiet luxury retreat — more intimate than flashy — where yachts rock gently in the marina, spa windows shimmer with Adriatic light, and views stretch from Duino to Miramare, across to the Croatian coast. Resembling in ways Portofino or Porto Cervo, but with a northern soul and a conscious footprint.

Friulians have long known how to meet challenge with ingenuity — whether in ecology, design, or daily life. The Parovel family that we work with, have a fascinating story through the generations speaking of this resilience. They were the first in the Karst region to offer native wines in bottle as well as extra virgin olive oil from the native Bianchera-Belica cultivar, unique for its organoleptic properties and known and loved by many of you in the name of UL’KA. They love visitors – if you plan to be in the area, you really must get in touch and go to meet Elena and her familly

This is a borderland — a meeting point of languages, stories, and landscapes. Here, tourism unfolds slowly, with intention. Within an hour’s drive, one can descend from alpine pastures to Adriatic beaches, wander through ancient lagoons, or climb the Karst hills to vineyards brushed by bora winds. Sustainability isn’t a trend; it’s a way of being — patient, rooted, and quietly generous.

To truly understand Friuli-Venezia Giulia, take the road less hurried. Let the Strada del Vino e dei Sapori guide you, map in hand. Nearly 400 stops: family-run farmhouses, distilleries humming with copper stills, trattorias where time slows, and artisans who still believe in doing things by hand. Everything you taste here tells a story.