A tour on a motorbike and an aperitif in Cividale del Friuli

Art & Culture

5 April 2018

Art & Culture

A tour on a motorbike and an aperitif in Cividale del Friuli

It’s Easter morning. It’s still raining outside. “What shall we do?” “It'll stop in a little while. How about a tour on the motorbike and an aperitif in Cividale?” “Good idea, but let's via to the fields”. We set off on the dirt roads behind the fields near home, jumping into the pools of rainwater with the motorbikes. All wet, we laugh like children. There are the first two bends on the quagmire of the first dirt track near Fraelacco and we take a tumble. Nothing broken luckily. Just a lot of mud on the bike and on us. We continue on the paved road. A little more quietly and with the tail between our legs. But passing through the villages beneath the hills, the clouds painting the sky and the fresh air that slips between the helmet and wet clothes makes us cheerful again.

Cividale is in the spring sun. Children and adults in the square play at "Truc", an old game with hard-boiled eggs brought back to life by the local tourist board. We walk through the streets of the small UNESCO World Heritage town with its old houses inlaid with pebbles, after a first glass of red and a toast with ham and horseradish. “I've never been in these lanes before” “They’re really wonderful. Have you ever seen the Lombard chapel and the Celtic Hypogeum?" We look back quizzically. “Well let's go, it's really worth it”. With its elegant stuccos and frescoes, the chapel welcomes us silently. There is only us. We remain in silence and admire the wonders created by the hand of man over a thousand years ago.

Leaving the small chapel, the Natisone river bounces along between the rocks and with the Matajur hill paints a postcard choreography on the old town of founded by Julius Caesar and taken over by the Lombard kings.

Just a few more steps and we find ourselves in front of the old wooden door that guards the entrance of the ancient hypogeum. I had heard about it. It is a Celtic-pre-Roman place where purification rituals took place, but it was later also a medieval prison, a Jewish bathhouse... It is not clear what use was made of these rooms that go down into the rock, nor who created this small underground labyrinth, dripping with water, and full of seats and shelves carved into the stone. A large face on the doorframe of the entrance to the lower room looks at me with its mouth wide open. We emerge a bit spaced out by our little descent into a mysterious and ancient world, each thinking back perhaps to his existence and that of his ancestors.

The light of the unexpected sun revives us, and after another quick and delicious snack in the ancient streets full of characters from olden days—ladies in long dresses, warriors with skins on their shoulders and swords at the waist—we set off again on our muddy bikes. The ancient Cividale, steeped in history and beauty, greets us as we take the first bends on the way to Fedis.

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Andrea Maroè

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I look for, climb, measure and defend the oldest, largest, most majestic and mysterious trees around the world, but I love exploring our own woodlands and nature too.