Italy Guide
Friuli-Venezia Giulia
The Carnia
The peak district in the north of Friuli is known as the Carnia, a name given to it by the Celtic tribes who settled here in the fourth century BC. There are two distinct areas. To the west, hay meadows and orchards give way to the Alpine uplands and pastures of the Alpi Carniche, which share the culture of the eastern Dolomites. To the east, the high, sheer and often barren limestone peaks of the Alpi Giulie are divided by deep, forested valleys that radiate towards the borders with Austria in the north and Slovenia in the east.
Both of these ranges are hardly known even within Italy, yet the area has a lot to offer the hiker and climber, including numerous rifugi. Linguists should get a kick out of it too, as the villagers speak strange variants of Friulano, German and Slovene.