Aroma Cucina

Friuli Wine Primer

OK, you’ve heard me rhapsodize about Friulian wines and you’d like to taste them too, but what can you reasonably expect to find on your wine merchant’s shelf and what should you look for?  Doesn’t it drive you crazy when you read about great wines and you can never, ever find them??

The Friuli Venezia Giulia region is known as a major white wine producer but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek out their reds, which have benefited from a concerted effort to upgrade their quality and reputation. Traditionally there are strong Austrian and French influences found in the region’s wines, and varietals such as chardonnay, Riesling, sauvignon blanc, traminer, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot are all commonly found in Friuli.

Friuli’s most commonly exported and best known wine is “Tocai Friuliana”. Don’t confuse it with sweet Hungarian wine Tokaji. There is an ongoing legal battle to disallow the Friulians from using the name Tocai, but I don’t believe that has been resolved.

Tokai Friuliana is a straightforward white wine that works well with simple fish preparations, lightly sauced pastas, and is a match made in heaven when paired with San Daniele prosciutto. The chardonnays we tasted were consistently delicious, having spent very little, if any time at all, in oak. These chardonnays have almost nothing in common with the typical buttery, oaked California style chardonnay.  The Friulian style chardonnay is leaner and crisper and far better suited to pairing with foods. There is a sort of cult following for the unfiltered chardonnays, but very little actually leaves Friuli.

You should be able to find Friulian merlots as merlot grapes account for nearly 20 percent of all the vines in Friuli.  And just so can sound cool to your wine guy, in Italy, merlot is pronounced with a prominent “t” at the end.  Of course your wine guy may not know this and you’ll just wind up sounding like you are a little bit crazy.  Keep an eye out for Friulian cabernet francs as these are also delicious.  There are some single grape wines that are worth seeking out, namely “Refosco” and “Schioppettino”.  From what I’m reading the refosco grape is getting a lot of attention these days from vintners outside of Friuli, particularly in California. A young refosco can resemble a gamay, being lively and fruity in the glass or it can actually be a big, almost Amarone type wine.  It would be fun to do a refosco tasting and compare how different vintners handle this grape.  Schioppettino is going to be harder to find because it is a difficult grape to grow and to tame. It reminds me of the Umbrian Sagrantino grape in that you have to subdue the tannins before it can be pleasurable to drink.  However it is a great wine paired with grilled meats and it was our wine of choice the other night with our huge grilled steak.

One of the best value wines we came home with is a cabernet franc from Azienda Cencig. We stumbled upon this absolute gem of a vintner by happy accident. You know your fantasy of a vineyard with a happy winemaker, him mother hanging around in the back, some chickens wandering around, the smell of lunch cooking off in the distance to tantalize the taste buds and the view of the vineyard to satisfy the soul? What, your fantasy doesn’t look like that? Well mine does and that’s what Cencig looks like. We had a blast tasting his wines, trading stories about cinghiale and loading up our car with a cab franc that literally makes my toes curl with pleasure.  I don’t believe that Cencig exports any wine, which is a real shame. We had a long conversation about how he felt he was being bullied into making wines that were more ‘international’ in taste and to his mind that was a crime.  He declared that all California wines taste alike, which I certainly don’t agree with, but I understand his resentment of Parker-ized wines.  I just went back to my notes, and to be dead honest, I loved every single one of his wines, so if anyone wants to organize a trip to Friuli and Cencig, count us in.  And while I’m feeling confessional, we’ve been hoarding the cab franc…. Only the worthy are treated to a glass.

OK, blah, blah, blah…the chances of you walking into a wine shop that has a section dedicated to Friulian wines is slim so here is a list of vintners that if you see their name…grab a bottle and tell me what you think.

Cencig
Jermann (big exporter, good wines but you’ll pay for them)

Bastianich (yeah, like Lidia)

Livio Felluga (good chance of finding these wines, they’re good, a little overpriced on the export market, but consistently good quality)

Marco Felluga (they’re feuding brothers)

Schiopetto (grand daddy of Friulian wines)

Edi Keber (he once treated us to his personal stash of unfiltered chardonnay… he lives and breathes his wine the way we would all like to)

Ronco del Gelso

Zamo

Dorigo (they produce an excellent Schioppettino)

Villa Russiz

Skerk

Petrussa (if you find their sauvignon blanc 2007….just buy me a bottle, ok)

Damijan (long shot that this producer exports but his unfiltered Banco Kaplia ’04 is probably one of the most unusual and complex whites we’ve ever tasted. It looks like cider in the glass)

Grado, Aquileia, Udine and home

Grado wasn’t our cup of tea. It’s a very chic seaside resort town that shares the same water as Venice. It sort of a cross between Miami Beach, the Hamptons and RV heaven.Beautifully restored little streets, very expensive and mediocre restaurants and a reputation for being a  spa town.
The town is known for their “Boreto” or brodetto (fish soup) and it was good but we’d had enough fish, it was Saturday and we decided to head back to Udine because we didn’t want to miss Saturday night in Udine.

Our route out of Grado took us through the ancient town of Aquileia which is famous for the Basilica that dates back to 313AD.  The floor of the basilica is covered in incredibly detailed mosaics depicting many allegorical images that are clearly pagan in their roots.  Behind the Basilica is a very moving and powerful cemetery dedicated to the victims of World War 1. The two statues pictures might be a bit difficult to see in this lower resolution but take a close look. One has gaunt soldiers being helped by a crucified Jesus and the other is an archangel lugging a fallen soldier to heaven.

Hard to believe, but we didn’t stop to eat in Aquileia!  We did stop at an unremarkable roadside trattoria, well not entirely unremarkable as I did see one of the strangest dishes go by.  It was a tomato margarita pizza heaped high with French Fries! I can honestly say that this a combination that I would never imagine in my wildest dreams, buy hey, to each his own.

This fantastic bike adventure was coming to end, but wait, there was still one more killer meal to be had and it was a complete accident that we found it.  After a louche Saturday night in Udine, we picked up the truck on Sunday morning and drove up into the Prealps.  It was fun to ride along some of the same roads that we had biked, but a car moves too fast and you miss all the little things.

We wandered far up into the hills where we saw foragers staggering out of the woods carrying huge baskets of mushrooms and by lunchtime we were very hungry and heading down into Tricesmo where there was supposed to be a good restaurant. We had our car windows open to breathe in the fresh air, when the smell of grilling meat wafted in.  Like characters in a silly cartoon, we looked at each other and without a word, careened into the parking lot of the Trattoria Friuli.

They were just gearing up for a full Sunday lunch and since we had no reservations, they put us at a little table by the door. Great seat….we got to watch the full parade of people coming in.  No menu, just a few questions: wine? If the answer was yes, they went to a refrigerator and pulled out a generic bottle of red wine. Turns out its their own wine and the vineyard is right outside. Meat? Yes, please.  Mushrooms? Yes, please. Pasta? Yes, please.
Our order being taken, Jeff heads off to use the facilities and comes back with the hugest grin, “You have to see what’s going on in there!”
I wander into the next room and there is a grill the size of a billiard table, covered in meat.  The chef is sweating and smiling and having a fine old time getting his picture taken by me. I hurry back to the table because I see our antipasto has arrived and Jeff is already sampling away at the silky prosciutto. We eat fresh tagliatelle with funghi, another huge plate of sautéed mixed funghi and finally a perfectly done dinosaur steak. It was complete heaven.  We rolled out of there and the next day we rolled home to Umbria.
Can you tell we had some fun in Friuli?  You know we are going back to Udine and it will be in time for Saturday night!

Trattoria Friuli
Torlano di Nimis
Via del, Ponte, 2
Tel: 0432-790203

Biking Friuli: Trieste

It’s been awhile since I posted on Friuli, but the gracious city of Trieste needs it’s moment of blog glory.  We were undecided about going to Trieste, it’s at the very eastern edge of Italy and it meant that we couldn’t do a loop but would have to ride the same way out there and back. Let’s put it this way, no matter how out of the way it seems: go to Trieste. 

Trieste’s history is unusually shrouded in myths and legends: Jason and the Argonauts landed in Trieste on their search for the Golden Fleece.  It was an outpost of Ancient Rome and there are significant Roman ruins still standing.  In 1382 Trieste was officially under the Austrian Hapsburg rule and it remained an Austrian city until the end of World War I when it was annexed to Italy.

We rode on the Costeria road from Monfalcone to Trieste which it turns out is a very popular bike route with the fast biking lycra crowd. The road is in good condition and hugs the water so we had to make a number of stops just to admire the view and that wild rock tunnel.  There is a beautiful seaside esplanade leading into the city, with small beaches and little showers set up so that wind surfers can clean up before they head back into town. Extremely civilized.
 Not wanting to risk missing lunch, we stopped and ate at a little sandwich café in the formal gardens surrounding Castella Miramare.  No hot food, just pannini, which was fine with us as it was so delicious to sit in the sun and smell the sea. Jeff starts to chat up the bar man and pretty soon Jeff comes back outside with an incredible glass of 2006 Skerk unfiltered chardonnay and a very large smile on his face. One of the most appealing things about this Friuli adventure was finding so many people passionate about their wine. No matter how humble the place, the wine was always stellar.

Little did we know that Trieste is also home to “Barcolana”, one of the largest regatta racing events in the world and we had come into town about two days before the main event. The most incredible sailboats just kept coming into port. I don’t know a thing about racing sailboats except that they are very lovely to look at.  By Friday, there were so many boats and masts you could barely see across the harbor.

After a long ramble exploring the city, we were hungry, it was dinnertime and someone we met had recommended Arco Riccardo ristorante. The Arco Riccardo is an intact Roman arch that is at the entrance to this lovely little retreat of a restaurant. The lights are soothing, the music is relaxing and the food is sublime. The overall experience is sensuous and satisfying. Bits of smooth pureed baccala, tiny marinated anchovies, perfectly grilled gamberoni and a knock out drop-dead bottle of Kante 2004 unfiltered chardonnay. Even though the wine was unfiltered it wasn’t cloudy and it had a gorgeous nose full of fresh cut apples that gave way to a persistent violet finish. I’ll probably never find that wine again, and I’ll have to live on the memory of it, but that’s ok because it was one of life’s great moments.

The next day we decided to ride out to the small fishing village of Muggia that is truly the last stop in Italy. I do not recommend bike riding to Muggia! It’s a lot of nasty highway and tunnels and not at all fun, but the insanely good lunch we had there made up for that rotten ride.   We wandered into the tiny Enoteca di Patriarca and when I say tiny I mean it had three tables and one of the tables was occupied by the owner/waiter/husband/sommelier.  His wife is the cook and man can she cook. We’re both fans of ‘sarde in saor’.  It’s a typical dish of the region, marinated sardines with onions.  The sardines are very lightly fried, then covered with hot onions and left to marinate for a day or two.  This lady’s sarde in saor was hands down the best we’ve ever tasted. I pestered her for the recipe and she let us know that Muggia is home to the best tasting sardines. You can find them in Grado or Venice, but they can’t compare to Muggia sardines. Who knew?
The other brings-tear-to-your-eyes dish was a simple plate of grilled ‘caposanto’ or scallops in their shells. Perfectly done, sweet, tender, yielding like a virgin on her wedding night. OK, I’m getting carried away but these were some seriously good scallops.  We floated on a happy foodie cloud all the way back to Trieste.
The next day we reluctantly headed out of town, actually we were kicked out. There wasn’t a hotel room to be had because of Barcolana, so we packed up our gear and headed to the oh so chic beach town of Grado.

Biking Friuli: Gorizia to Monfalcone

I know. I know. These biking posts seem to be going on forever, but there is no sell-by date on some of places we saw, the wines we drank, or the food we ate. I should be the I Love Friuli spokesperson. We still don’t understand why this area is so off the radar.

After rolling out of Cormons and saying good-bye to everyone at La Subida, we headed for Gorizia. It’s right on the Slovenia border, in fact if you Wiki Gorizia, the name comes up as Guriza in the local Friulano dialect, Gurize in proper Friulano, Gorica in Slovenian, and Gorz in German.  This town has changed hands and countries more than a few times. It has a sort of border town, frontier feel to it, as if it’s got one foot in Italy and one foot in Slovenia.

It’s also a pretty quiet town, so we were a little worried that we would find a good place for our lunch.  What good luck! We stumbled on an absolute jewel of a restaurant, La Locandiera.  They have two set menus, either land or sea, with great sounding choices on both. The ‘funny’ thing is that it’s a Pugliese-Friulana restaurant, now that’s a combination that you don’t see everyday, but it works for me. Jeff and I both went land and I was served a most hearty and delicious, thick, green vegetable soup. It was perfect for a slightly overcast day, and again it took me back to the flavors of my Polish grandmother’s house. Soul food, indeed.  Everything we ate was so obviously prepared with love and care; it was just delightful.  Gorizia is a little out of the way, but if you find yourself there, go and enjoy a meal at La Locandiera.

Now we were heading south, and our goal was to see the sea by afternoon. Mission accomplished. We rolled into the port town of Montfalcone around 4:30, it was a weekday night, and so we had no worries about finding a room. Wrong. Turns out that Carnival cruise lines had an engineer convention going on, and there wasn’t a room to be had. Or so we were told as we made the rounds looking for a room. Now, I’m starting to get nervous. I like a roof over my head at night, and I was really looking forward to a shower. As we nervously head back out of town, we spy the Hotel Excelsior, where Boris Karloff is working at the front desk. He informs us that he actually has the last room in town, its not the Ritz, it doesn’t have a double bed, but it does have beds, a shower and we can have it. Sold. Boris then gives us instructions to get to the room….seems the elevator doesn’t go all the way up to our floor and he starts to tell us about how we have to climb a rope to get to our room, and we we’re wondering what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into. Turns out Boris was a great joker and the room was fine, clean and lots of hot water.   He also turned us on to an interesting fish restaurant, La Gorna. Now, I would never walk by and say, oh, I want to eat there. It looked like some brightly lit, tiny coffee shop in a small town, that’s trying to look hip. Bright colors on the walls and on the tables, …but, honey, there is some serious fish going on there. I started with simple grilled scallops, still in their shell with a tiny drop of butter to enhance their sweetness. Jeff had a grilled octopus salad with warm potatoes over super fresh greens, and then we shared the mother of all orata. A huge orata, its skin grilled to a thick crunch, the flesh inside steamed in its own vapor. Mmmmm. I could go for that meal right about now.   It made all the stress over finding a place to sleep just melt away.

The strangest part of the Hotel Excelsior and Monfalcone is that we swore we took a wrong turn and wound up in Taipei.  Even the hotel décor with the too bright pink tablecloths and dusty fake flowers reinforced that special downtown Taipei feeling. One night in Vermont, the next in Taiwan. What a bike trip. One other interesting tidbit about Monfalcone: the women are very into butt cleavage. You know that look where you get to see the top of the crack? I’ve never seen so much butt cleavage in my life. See the photo of the smiling women at the café…guess why they are smiling.

La Locandiera
Piazza Cavour,6
Gorizia 34170
Tel: 0481 550 614

La Gorna
Via dell’Arena, 7
34074 Monfalcone
Tel: 0481 791 291

Biking Friuli: Cormons

** Mi dispiace! That means I’m sorry. These posts have taken too long, but I’m having some terrible problems with my blog host. We’re working on getting them fixed. Keep your fingers crossed for me!**



If ever there is a time of year to bike between Cividale del Friuli and Cormons, early October is the time to do it.  It was sensory overload.  The smell of ripening grapes is everywhere, the leaves on the vines are vibrant shades of yellow and red looking like revelers at Carinvale, we followed small, slow moving tractors towing large crates of just picked grapes, there are sun warmed figs hanging from the trees when we wanted a snack. Can one die of bucolic?  Somewhere around Dolegna del Collio we were riding on a single lane country road and the vineyards rose up on both sides of us and we were literally enveloped in grape. The problem with all this grape-iness? Fruit flies! We had to ride with our mouths clamped shut, but the little buggers were hell bent on getting stuck to us.  We were in Wine Central. 
We came into the town of Cormons around 1:00 pm and sitting in the sun at a wine bar were three farmers, you could tell they were men of the earth because their hands were as gnarly and strong as the vines they had just been working. What struck me about these outdoor man-hands were the beautiful, delicate wine glasses, gripped in their thick fingers. The straw colored wine shimmered in the sun, and the men sipped their wine with an equal mix of nonchalance and reverence. For that little moment in time, all was right with the world.

Our destination that evening was La Subida, a restaurant and country inn just above the town of Cormons.  I had been there four years ago, as a student with Ital.Cook, the regional Italian Slow Food School. I’ve wanted to bring Jeff here for years, as the combination of food, hospitality and rustic setting was sublime in my memory.  Please let it be as good as I remembered…. You know that chant.

We arrived in the early afternoon and they gave us a key to our ‘room’.  Turns out we weren’t in the main building, but the down the road a few hundred meters, which just happens to be in Vermont.  It was as if we had clicked our heels together three times and were transported to Vermont. Our ‘room’ was actually a small house, all knotty pine and very cleverly designed to make the maximum use of light and space. Someone put a lot of good thought into the layout of our little country hideaway.  Fluffy down quilt, snuggly bathrobes, a huge 2 person soaking tub, an enormous wooden terrace off the bedroom, nicely outfitted kitchen, and other little outdoor spaces on the ground floor. It was incredibly deluxe at a very fair price.  We thought about taking a hike in the woods, we thought about going horse back riding, we wound up taking a bath and a nap. Divine.

This was to be our big, blow out meal. Coming here was a treat that we were both looking forward to, so we took the plunge and went with the tasting menu and had the excellent sommelier pair the wines for us. What a feast
Tartar of Cervo (a type of local deer) served on a bed of fresh fennel salad. Paired with a 2007 Tercic Ribolla Gialla.  The acid in the fennel salad was a great counterpoint to the richness of the tartar.

Herb Gnocchi that literally melted when they hit your tongue, balanced with a bit of smoked Montasio cheese and beet.  Paired with a lavender scented 2007 Petrussa Sauvignon.

Fregola di Faro in a mushroom sauce.  Fregola is a popular Sardinian pasta; it's like a huge grain of couscous, with the added flavor that comes from toasting. It’s perfect for absorbing mushroom essences.

Then we were treated to a nice, light, herbal sorbetto interlude.

The final meat course was capriolo, a small wild deer found in the mountains around Cormons. It was a long wait between the sorbetto and the meat course, so the sommelier treated us to two delicious reds: le Due Torre 2004 made from the local Refosco grape.  This wine reminded both of us of a Sagrantino, it’s not a sipping wine and it needs some sort of protein to mellow the tannins.
The other red was a lush, delicious, sensuous come-on of a wine, a 2001 Carlo di Pradis merlot.

By this time we were beyond full, and ready to throw down our forks, when the desserts arrived.  Fortunately, a little glass of Doirigo’s 2006 Verduzzo helped us to polish off the deserts.  We rolled home. No. We waddled. The dining room is cozy rustic, with one of the dining areas literally filled with taxidermy animals; it’s amazing.  The staff is warm and extremely professional. It’s a family run operation, and it’s clearly a labor of love.

I’m mentioning all these wines, not because I want you to drool at your computer, but because, maybe, if you get lucky, you’ll spot one of these gems at your wine store. In particular, the Petrussa Sauvignon blew me away. It’s a clean wine, with a floral scent that gives way to a long, lingering finish.

The next morning, we came for breakfast with a bit of trepidation….please, don’t feed us too much, don’t tempt us too much. I shouldn’t have worried, it was a perfect breakfast: a little fruit, some home made breads and jams and a small plate of house-cured proscuitto. La Subida was everything we could have wanted, I was a little sad as we rolled out of Vermont and we were back on the road heading towards Gorizia.

La Subida
Cacciatore della Subida
Localita Monte 22
Cormons
Tel: 0481 60531

Biking Friuli: Cividale del Friuli

Cividale del Friuli

OK, I confess we had modest goals for our first day’s ride, but I wanted to have an easy first day figuring out how to balance our panniers (those saddle bags on a bike) and adjusting to highway riding. Not autostrada, but still we were navigating fairly busy roads. 

We pulled into the main piazza in Cividale just in time to enjoy the last hour or so of sunshine. There is a wonderful enoteca (wine bar) called Gustobase that is everything you would want from a wine country wine bar.  We sampled a Tokai Friuliana, the signature white wine of the area, and a simple Malvasia.  After chatting up Enrico, the owner of Gustobase, he suggested we try something a little more ‘particulare” (Pronounced part- ick- you- lar-eh, this is an Italian designation given to anything that is a little bit different, sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes it’s just plain odd. It can be useful when someone is asking you how you like something, you say, “Ah, molto particulare.” Could mean anything.)

We were up for something molto particulare, so Enrico suggested “Bianco Kaplia ’04 by Damijan Podversic. Yes, that’s an Italian wine producer, but you are a stone’s throw from the Slovenia border.   It’s an unfiltered wine, so it almost looks like cider in the glass, but it had a beautiful fresh pear nose, and a persistent, somewhat racy finish.  I was treated to one of these unfiltered wines once before and they are definitely particulare, but in a good way.

We had plans to bike up the hill to the looming hotel, Locanda del Castello, but we both decided that after the previous night’s Fart Hotel experience, we wanted to be right in the heart of town. Enrico suggested the comely Locanda del Pomo d’Oro (or Tomato Hotel) and it fit our needs perfectly. Warm, clean and cozy and with homemade streudel and San Daniele for breakfast, what more did we need? We had our first lesson in bike safety when we attached our bikes to some unused “no parking’ signs, and came out in the morning and found our bikes safely propped up against a wall, but without the no parking signs. Guess they needed them after all.

Once again we roamed around this lovely town on our bikes, checking out some art galleries, crossing the famed Devil’s Bridge and all in all, having just a fine time. When we got hungry, we went back to Enrico at Gustobase and he suggested we have dinner at Ai Tre Re.  Enrico is clearly The Man in Cividale!

Ai Tre Re is a cozy, mountain town restaurant with some killer grilled sausage. But, if you look at the sausage photo, up in the right hand corner is a bowl of potatoes.  One bite and I was back at my grandmother’s kitchen table. I hadn’t tasted that combination of potatoes and onions in over 50 years and the flavor was exactly what I remembered eating at my Busia’s house. It’s amazing how a flavor or smell can transport you, even more than something visual.  

So, there we were, our first night without the ‘safety net’ of a nearby car. It felt good.

Gustobase
Piazza Paolo Diacona, 24
Cividale del Friuli
Tell Enrico we sent you, closed Tue.

Locanda al Pomo d’Oro
Piazzetta San Giovanni, 20
TEL.+39 0432 731489

Ai Tre Re Ristorante
Via Stretta San Valentino, 31
Tel: 0432 700416
Closed Tues.

Biking Friuli: Udine

I’ve been a little overwhelmed trying to organize all of the good stuff from our recent bike trip to the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of Italy, and now that we are friends with the region, we can call her by her first name, Friuli.  I’m just going to give you some highlights, but this is one curiously under-visited part of Italy. It’s physically beautiful with its northern boundary of mountains, and you are never far from the sea so you can find fish AND meat on the same menu! See what living in fish deprived Umbria can do to you. Friuli is also a great wine producing area and although it’s known for their white wine, in the past few years, the reds have dramatically improved.

We rolled into the capital city of Udine on a Saturday night and let me tell you, Udine knows a thing or two about having fun on a Saturday night.  The streets and bars were just crammed with people, mostly young people out to have a good time.

We discovered the Café Contarena; housed in an old converted bank, right off the Piazza del Liberta and we treated ourselves to the most delicious Manhattan cocktail that we’ve ever had in Italy. A near perfect Manhattan, made all the more enjoyable by the excellent music the DJ was turning out. I would give my heart and soul to have access to this dude’s music library. How delicious is the first evening of a vacation, when you have the whole week ahead of you? What better way to start our bike-food-wine adventure than by sipping a well made cocktail, surrounded by all sorts of interesting looking people.

But one cocktail is the limit and now we needed food. Turned out that it’s far, far easier to get a drink than it is to find a restaurant.

We finally found an osteria, and we began by eating the prosciutto….oh my.  This was melting silk on your tongue, a few chews and the fragile, whisper thin slice of prosciutto simply vanished in your mouth. This is the famed Prosciutto di San Daniele, and it is rightfully famous. Some people need a daily fix of gelato; we need prosciutto. 

It slowly dawned us that we were probably the oldest people out on the streets. It is a ‘ragazzi’ town.  We passed one university, but there must be more because I’ve never seen so many college age students out having fun.  When we got back to our hotel, affectionately named the Fart Hotel because it was such a pain in the arse to find, Jeff shared a little pillow talk with me, “You know I could have fun hanging out with all those kids. I know I could, I just have to go to bed earlier than them.” ….zzzzz…….

Sunday morning we said good-bye to our truck, leaving it safely parked at the train station, and finally we were off on our bikes, exploring the beautiful city of Udine. What a great biking city, lots of dedicated bike lanes and parking places, a real treat. After another simple osteria meal, with two courses of San Daniele, we were ready to leave town and head out for our next destination: Cividale del Friuli.

Osteria Alla Ghiacciaia
Via Zanon, 13
Udine
Open on Sundays, which is good to know because not much else is open.

The Art Hotel
Via Paparotti, 11
Tel: 39 0432 600061
Stylish new hotel, comfortable, but over 6km away from the center of town