Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sights
From hexagonal Piazza Grande, at the star's centre, six roads radiate through the old town
to the defensive walls. An inviting grassy path connects the bastions and three main porte
(gates): Udine, Cividale and Aquileia.
MUSEUM
Civico Museo Storico
( 0432 91 91 06; Borgo Udine 4; adult/reduced €2/1.50; 9.30am-12.30pm Tue-Sun summer, or by
arrangement)
Head along Borgo Udine to uncover local history and weaponry from the
Venetian and Napoleonic eras in the Civico Museo Storico, inside
Palazzo Trevisan
. The
museum also acts as a
tourist office
( 0432 92 48 15; 9.30am-12.30pm & 3.30-6.30pm Mon,
Tue & Thu-Sat )
and has information on secret-tunnel tours that wind beneath the city walls.
Museo Storico Militare
( 0432 92 81 75; Piazza Grande 21; 9am-noon daily & 4-6pm Mon-Sat)
The Museo St-
orico Militare is inside Porta Cividale. The military museum traces the history of troops
stationed in Palmanova from 1593 to WWII.
MUSEUM
Getting There & Away
Regular buses link Palmanova with Udine (€3.15, 30 minutes) and Aquileia (€2.65, 40
minutes), leaving from Via Rota, just inside the walls.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Aquileia
POP 3500
Aquileia, off the beaten track? It certainly wasn't 2000 years ago. Colonised in 181 BC,
Aquileia was once one of the largest and richest cities of the Roman Empire, at times
second only to Rome, with a population of at least 100,000 at its peak. After the city was
levelled by Attila's Huns in AD 452, its inhabitants fled south and west where they foun-
ded Grado and then Venice. A smaller town rose in Aquileia's place in the early Middle
Ages with the construction of the present basilica; it too went onto greater significance,
becoming the largest Christian diocese in Europe. Conferred with a Unesco World Herit-
age listing in 1998, this charmingly rural town and living museum still, rather thrillingly,
guards one of the most complete, unexcavated Roman sites in Europe.
