The plain and hills of Friuli Venezia Giulia offer the change to take a whole journey through local art and history. You can visit significant Roman ruins at Aquileia or experience the charm of medieval castles and hamlets such asVenzone, Gemona del Friuli and San Daniele del Friuli. Udine was one of the main centres of the Republic of Venice, as still visible from the architecture of its buildings and artwork of that period (in particular Gianbattista Tiepolo's masterpieces), while Palmanova, also known as the "Star-shaped town" due to its nine-pointed star polygonal layout, is a true masterpiece of military design and architecture of the sixteenth century.
All this area had not been directly affected by the Great War until the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo. Between 1915 and 1917, the whole Friulian plain had been transformed into a massive rear line of the Italian army. Several small villages hosted military housing for the troops, field hospitals, laundries, cemeteries and entertaining venues to give soldiers a break after the battles on the front. These places saw the deeds of men in the likes of Gabriele D'Annunzio, Giuseppe Ungaretti(who mentions Santa Maria la Longa, Mariano del Friuli and Campolongo al Torre in his poems) and Emilio Lussu, who opened his famous book "One year on the plateau" with the description of the village of Aiello del Friuli.
Then, the defeat of Caporetto changed everything: hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians escaped to Veneto and the whole Friuli was occupied by the Austro-Hungarians for over a year, while small resistance groups of Italian soldiers were swept away, like in Pozzuolo del Friuli, Mortegliano, Latisanotta and Ragogna. Also today's province of Pordenone, which had been left out of the war until then, was affected by the retreat of Italian soldiers and the advance of the Austro-German troops.
