Aquileia, Italy and Lake Barcis

Saturday, June 20

Today Preston and I had originally planned on going to the beach but as usual it was overcast and rainy. So we decided to go to Aquileia which is about an hour and half from our house. Preston had heard people talking about Roman ruins close to Aviano that we should go see eventually. So why not! Aquileia was a colony founded by the Romans in 180/181 BC

We left mid morning and got down there around 10:30ish. We ended up parking by the Tourist Information Booth where you could receive a map of the area (in English as well as other languages) and all the different ruins/sites you could visit. Which ended up being very helpful.

The town is not that big at all so it is easy to walk everywhere and see everything.

First site we walked to was the Forum.

Then we started walking towards the cathedral. Along the way we stopped and saw a few more ruins off the side of the road.

Across the street was the bell tower and cathedral. The church was built 1031 and rebuilt in 1379.

The floors were really pretty, as they were mosaic tiles hand placed throughout.

We wandered the courtyard and then wandered down a path that had more Roman ruins around the canal. Now its so overgrown and full of algae that you can barely imagine having boats and ships come in here.

After seeing all the sites, we decided to stop and eat lunch at the restaurant by where we parked our car. The ristorante-pizzeria was called Alla Basilica. Small place, but the delcious smells were intriguing.

We asked to sit outside since it was still sunny out, but you could definitely see the clouds rolling in. We got two meals but split them with each other. We ordered gnocchi with a seafood sauce and a pizza with porcini mushrooms and prosciutto. The gnocchi was delicious! I'm glad we decided to go with a seafood sauce since we had never tried that before. And pizza is always delicious in Italy.

Pizza with porcini mushrooms and prosciutto

Gnocchi with seafood sauce

After eating lunch we started to make our journey home.

When we got closer to home we decided we wanted to continue on to Lake Barcis to do a little off-roading.

I always love going to Lake Barcis because of the amazing views! And the water is a beautiful bluish-green.

We went to one of our usual spots we have been to before in our old car. It always has really pretty views!

Our baby!

While starting to head back, Preston decided to go down this super narrow bridge, that did not look like we would fit, so we could go on the other side of the lake to see some different views.

Looks more like a walkway than road...

Always an adventure with us two! :)