Strassoldo

Perhaps one of the best hamlets on the The most beautiful Village list.

Strassoldo is one quiet place where I would want to just move there for the summer and nobody should bother me until September 30th. 

 It is a rare example of an ancient medieval village, extremely well preserved, and of unique charm.  

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Access to the village is through a high turreted gate, the Porta Cisis which opens onto the outer circle of the walls  and into an avenue surrounded by 16th-century houses. 

Castello di Sotto (Lower Castle), includes the complex of buildings built around an internal courtyard. 

The main rectangular building constitutes the so-called “keep“, whose origin is uncertain but which underwent various alterations in the fourteenth, seventeenth, and finally eighteenth centuries when the eastern facade was modified. 

Each house is lovingly cared, embellished by the greenest garden and backyard. They are all graced by plenty of freshwater streaming through the  village. 

It really looks like a fairytale country.

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Aquileia

Founded by the Romans in 181 BC as a military outpost against the barbarians, Aquileia later became an important river commercial center and one of the most flourishing cities of the Roman Empire, partly destroyed during the looting of the Huns of Attila.

Aquileia resisted the repeated incursions of Alaric (401, 408) but not Attila who, following the accidental collapse of a wall of the fortification, managed to penetrate the city on May 18, 452, devastating it and, it is said, spreading salt on the ruins. 

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A legend linked to the figure of Attila is about the treasure of Aquileia, buried to prevent it from being plundered. It may still be there somewhere! 

After Attila’s raid, Roman inhabitants, together with those of smaller towns in the neighborhood, fled en masse to the lagoons, and so laid the foundations of  Venice and nearby Grado.

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Grado

Once mainly a fishing center, today it is a popular tourist destination, known commonly as L’Isola del Sole (“The Sunny Island“), also famous because it is also a  SPA location. 

Grado attracts scores of tourists each year to its hotels and campgrounds. Before COVID that is obviously. 

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The town also boasts a well-preserved pedestrian-only center, in which many shops, bars, and restaurants are located. The beauty of this town is that it is open and fully operating year-round.

Strassoldo, Aquileia, Grado