Friuli's elegant capital — Tiepolo's greatest frescoes, an Austro-Hungarian piazza, and the birthplace of Italian craft beer
Udine is the elegant, underrated capital of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a region with one foot in Italy and one in Central Europe — the Austrian Empire ruled it until 1918, and the food, architecture, and mentality reflect this hybrid identity. The city's Piazza della Libertà is justifiably called 'the most beautiful Venetian square on the Italian mainland', ringed by Gothic loggia, Renaissance clock tower, and Venetian lion columns. The Palazzo Arcivescovile contains what many consider Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's greatest fresco cycle, painted between 1726–1728. Friuli is the cradle of Italian cr…
Udine's history is a succession of rulers — Lombards, Carolingians, the Patriarchate of Aquileia (which controlled northeast Italy for 500 years), Venice (1420–1797), Napoleonic France, and finally the Austrian Empire. The Venetian period shaped the city's character most deeply; the Piazza della Libertà was rebuilt by Venice as a statement of imperial power after the conquest of 1420. The Austrian period brought coffeehouses, civic efficiency, and a bourgeois culture that persists today. Friuli-Venezia Giulia was returned to Italy only in 1954 after being disputed with Yugoslavia for nearly a…