Udine, Italy: a cultural guide

Donald Strachan offers an essential cultural guide to an Italian city that shares DNA
with both Venice and Vienna.

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Everywhere I walked, I also met Venice

Locals call it il salotto di Udine, "Udine's drawing room", though my map calls it Piazza
Matteotti. We grabbed a table just as the bell of San Giacomo struck seven, when
the Udinese bring the square to sudden life. Local children made a beeline for the
square's 16th-century fountain while their parents filled the cafs under the
mismatched arcades. I picked up a snatch of Friulian dialect here and there, but much
more noticeable was a lack of foreign voices.
I had been up early to explore this little mountain-ringed city in north-east Italy and

immediately detected more than a hint of Vienna. This area was part of the Austrian
Empire between 1797 and 1866 and there's still a dash of the Habsburg in its
thriving caf society. The prosperous centre is compact, clean and organised those
Austrians again with a warren of tiny piazzas and a pleasing ratio of bakeries and
butchers to postcard vendors.
Everywhere I walked, I also met Venice, the city that ruled the region for almost 400
years. Piazza della Libert, Udine's architectural set-piece, is dominated by the
Loggia del Lionello, whose Gothic arcades, dressed in pastel-pink banding, mirror the
Doge's Palace. The Lion of St Mark, symbol of Venice, is carved prominently on
Andrea Palladio's Arco Bollani and the Renaissance Loggia di San Giovanni.
Udine has yet more Venetian DNA, in the shape of the 18th-century painter
Giambattista Tiepolo, who, in the 1720s, aged just 30 and still unproven, was
summoned to Udine by its then patriarch, Dionisio Delfino. The work he created here
in the course of four years catapulted him to superstardom.
We viewed his frescoes and panels in the Gothic Duomo, and then moved to the
former Patriarchal Palace, now the Museo Diocesano, which houses the greatest
concentration of his work.
Udine is generally delightfully flat and made for pedestrians, but I strode under
Palladio's arch for the short trek up pretty much the only hill, past the 13th-century
church of Santa Maria di Castello to the city's castle. This houses the city's 13-room
Galleria d'Arte Antica, where the highlight is a painting called the Blood of Christ,
the work of another Venetian, Vittore Carpaccio, from 1496.
At the Museo del Duomo I jumped back another century, to the frescoes of Vitale da
Bologna of Scenes from the Life of St Nicholas, painted as the Black Death raged
around him.
Then it was back to Tiepolo at the baroque Oratorio della Purit, a former theatre by
the cathedral, which neatly bookends the painter's career in Italy. He returned to
Udine in 1759 with his son Giandomenico to paint a ceiling fresco of the Assumption.
A couple of years later, he was called to the Spanish court and died in Madrid.
Having drunk our fill of northern Italian art, we stopped on Via Sarpi for a glass of
ribolla gialla, a fine sparkling wine that everyone here knows and appreciates, but
which rarely makes it on to the radar of outsiders. Which pretty much sums up this
delightful city.
GETTING THERE
Ryanair (0871 246 0000; ryanair.com) flies from Stansted and Birmingham to Friuli
Venezia Giulia Airport (Ryanair and others call it Trieste), midway between Trieste
and Udine; the latter is 26 miles to the north-west.
Bus 51 links the airport with Udine (3.90/3.40), with departures approximately
hourly (more frequent in the middle of the day). Get off at the terminus, on Viale
Leopardi, a short walk from the best central hotels.
Theres also a railway station, Monfalcone, a 15/13 taxi ride from Arrivals with a
direct half-hourly link to Udine.

The information office on Via Savorgnana (closed weekends) is more for residents, so
use the Turismo FVG office (Piazza I Maggio 7; 0039 0432 295972; turismofvg.it).
THE INSIDE TRACK
Most of Udines best sights are free, including the Duomo and Museo del Duomo
(Piazza Duomo). Visits to the Museo Diocesano (Piazza del Patriarcato 1) and Galleria
dArte Antica (0432 295891) cost 5/4.40 apiece. Each year between June and
December, the latter runs a Tiepolo exhibition on a different theme.
For a Friulian wine tour without leaving the city, head to the lively wine bars of Via
Sarpi; try grapes such as schioppettino, an earthy red, and friuliano, an aromatic,
light white with a satisfying mineral bite.
Roberto Calassos latest book translated into English, Tiepolo Pink, gets under the
skin of the last great Venetian painter.
The best stop for a mid-morning cappuccino is the Liberty interior of Contarena (Via
Cavour 1).
Dont play safe with food. Friulian cuisine is far from standard Italian, and local
gastronomic treats include smoked meats; cjalsons, a hearty variant on ravioli; frico,
fried Montasio cheese; and San Daniele, a cured prosciutto much like Parma ham.
THE BEST HOTELS
Dimora Montegnacco
The citys most stylish b&b has a central but quiet side-street location and rooms
with bold dcor and plenty of contemporary fizz (0432 204698;
dimoramontegnacco.it; doubles from 70/61).
Al Vecchio Tram
This hotel, opened last May and five minutes from Piazza Matteotti, has boutiquestyle rooms in cool grey with shocks of crimson (0432 507164; hotelvecchiotram.com;
doubles from 110/96).
Astoria Hotel Italia
Udines central, 19th-century grande dame has traditional dcor and standards of
service (0432 505091; hotelastoria.udine.it; from 120/105).
THE BEST RESTAURANTS
Ars Bibendi
Pasta dishes for 5 and one of the citys best wine lists (Via Sarpi 12; 0432 503136;
ars-bibendi.it).
Hostaria alla Tavernetta
Rustic-chic restaurant committed to regional and seasonal cooking. Roast meats such
as suckling pig or veal cheek are especially good (Via di Prampero 2; 0432 501066;
allatavernetta.com).
La Ciacarade
It looks slightly scruffy from outside, but the deceptively simple dishes on the brief,
daily-rotated menu are loaded with flavour. The short wine list is just right (Via San
Francesco 6; 0432 510250; laciacarade.it).
DID YOU KNOW?

Close to the front line, Udine was the seat of Italy's high command during the First
World War