Taste and tour your way through north-eastern Italy's castles, cuisine and colourful autumn landscapes.
Between the Alps and the Adriatic, this corner of north-eastern Italy is a road-tripping wonderland where you'll never go hungry.
In any of Trieste's famous liberty (art nouveau) coffee houses, it's easy to feel a little culturally confused. Should I order a coffee piled high with whipped cream, Austrian style, to go with my strudel; or choose a classic 'nero' (espresso)? In this city there's no wrong answer. With more than 500 years under Hapsburg rule, and much of the region only officially part of Italy since 1918, Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG) is a melting pot of Italian, Austrian and Balkan culture. Stretching from Veneto to the west, Slovenia to the east and the Austrian Alps to the north (with Trieste as its capital), it may be one of Italy's least-visited regions … but it has a wealth of cultural complexity.
North-eastern Italy in autumn: history, landscapes and local eats
We're in Trieste in late September. There's still a little late summer warmth in the air; but away from the coast, autumn is already turning the region's forests and valleys gold, red and brown. By early October FVG's distant peaks will be dusted with snow. My partner and I are planning a slow trip through the region and although we won't be covering vast distances, we hope to encounter a glimpse of thousands of years of history, admire bucolic landscapes, and eat like the locals – which is to say, very well indeed.
