Not far from Gemona is Venzone, a town close to the Julian Prealps and declared a national monument of great historical and artistic interest in 1965, being the only example of a fourteenth-century medieval walled citadel in Friuli.
In 1976 a series of seismic events brought the marvellous village to its knees, damaging it severely, but the tenacity and the worth of the Friulan individual won over the best of nature and after only 8 years Venzone together with its Cathedral, which became a symbol of reconstruction, was reborn. In the crypt of San Michele, adjacent to the Cathedral, are mummies belonging to an era between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Worth noting, in October there is the Festa della Zucca (Pumpkin Festival) when Venzone changes face and draws in inhabitants and visitors among songs, juggling and damsels and knights dancing. Everything flavoured, of course, with the best pumpkin-based recipes! Venzone won the award as the most beautiful village in Italy in 2017, A recognition to a town reborn as it was and where it was.
