Don't miss

Callled the "great fountain" this monolitich stone basin, in the centre of te town, dating back to 1697, is one of the municipailty's most important "monuments".

Besides the Nineteenth Century S. Nicolò Parish church, built by Girolamo D’Aronco of Gemona, father of the famous Raimondo, which safeguards inside it two simple late eighteenth century altars, you can also visit the church of San Valentino in Amaro, a simple construction dating back to 1600 and the Votive Church of Maina, rebuilt after the 1976 quake.

Artificial lake accessible from the main road via a country road that passes in front of the old Rainis mill. The lake is suitable for game fishing or taking a quiet stroll around its shores watching swans and ducks gliding across the water.

A waterfall a few dozen metres high creates this stunning cascade flowing down through a canyon of Monte Amariana.

It is the largest natural lake in Friuli Venezia Giulia and tourists and locals alike flock all along its shores, during hot summer Sundays, to sunbathe, picnic or rest in the shade of the trees.

The Pieve of Santo Stefano stands on a small hill, not far from the town, that was also used in the past also as a defence and check point. Nowadays the building retains its plain eighteenth century design thanks to the careful reconstruction after the earthquake. You can visit a small Antiquarium underneath the church which, via an interesting exhibition, illustrates the history of the place and the building.

Perched on a crag rising sharply approximately 1000 metres above the northern slopes of Monte S. Simeone, Monte Festa Fort was the object of a legendary defence during the First World War, in order to allow the withdrawal of Italian troops from the Carnia area.

Mediaeval in origin, although entirely rebuilt in the eighteenth century, the Church of Santa Caterina has always been, and still is, a religious and social focal point for the inhabitants of Tolmezzo.

The Cathedral of San Martino is the city’s most important religious building. Built in the eighteenth century, the interior is also worth seeing, where works by the Venetian painters Fontebasso, Novelli and Diziani are conserved along with the series of the Apostles executed by the greatest Carnic painter of the eighteenth century, Nicola Grassi.

This is one of the greatest ethnographic museums in Europe, with its huge array of objects and documents. The collections have used documents and reconstructions to create an important close-up view of Carnic society between the 14th and 19th centuries.

Standing in the historic centre of the old Borgo della Roggia, the exterior aspect of Palazzo Frisacco (18th) is softened by sober eighteenth century design and sculpted stone profiling of the windows and the main entrance door. It was the rectory for a long time. Today, after the reconstruction work following the 1976 earthquake, it is used as a civic exhibition centre for art exhibitions.

A little higher above the town, on the slopes of Monte Strabut the castle or patriarchal palazzo stood. A moat bound it towards the mountains and a wall closed the surrounding area off sloping down into the valley. Torre Picotta was built between 1477 and 1479 to defend the town and the castle against the Turkish menace. Walking up Via Cascina, a side street of Via Roma takes you into the Pra-Castello area, where the manor house stood, and Torre Picotta The view from here takes in the entire surrounding countryside and the city itself.

Age-old residence of the Janesi family, which can be dated to the 15th-16th Century represents one of the few surviving examples of late Mediaeval civil construction in the city. The façade, now in exposed stonework, would originally have been covered with geometric design frescos. There are some traces in the fragments conserved in the upper section of the front façade. Particular noteworthy features are the trilobate arched mullion windows supported by slender Venetian Gothic stone columns.

Illegio town is often referred to as the “town of arches” because of the numerous houses with arched doors or gates, although it is also home to other unusual artistic and architectural features: from archaeological evidence identified beneath the churches of S. Floriano, S. Paolo and S. Vito, and near the zone named Castello del Broili to seventeenth century windmills, of which one, the Mulin dal Flec, is still operational.

Erected on a site that has been settled since the Pre-Roman period the church was rebuilt in the 16th Century and revised in 1856. It safeguards two eighteenth century Carnic woodcraft altars and a baptismal font hewn out of stone.

This is one of the most interesting natural environments in Carnia. A natural pathway equipped and marked out with information panels allows visitors to wander through the entire area characterised by three peat bogs and a vast assortment of plant varieties.

The Arzino torrent gives rise to a series of particularly attractive waterfalls. In the midst of thick beech copses, the waterfalls alternate between wide erosion basins and deep, verdant pools.

Lake Verzegnis is a small but stunning artificial lake set in the hearth of a lush green valley. Crossing the bridge that straddles it you can get onto the path along the lake shores or, carrying on uphill along the road, reach the Madonna de "La Salete" and the towns of Duebis and Pusea.

Finds and structures discovered at Colle Mazeit archaeological site confirm a human presence in the area from the 4th Millennium B.C. up to the Mediaeval period. The clearly visible remains of a guard tower belonging to a much larger fortified structure indeed date back to the Mediaeval period.

The Pieve of San Martino was reconstructed from its foundations and extended in the 18th century (between 1730 and 1778) to a design by Tolmezzo Architect Domenico Schiavi. After the main entrance, the body of the church appears to divide into a nave and two aisles. Valuable furnishings and eighteenth century frescos complete the interior.

Verzegnis - Sella Chianzutan
Equipped trail to discover the ancient red marble quarry: a real open air industrial archaeology museum developed through recovering plans and artefacts which were part of the ancient extraction process.

In Villa, a contemporary art collector Egidio Marzona set up Art Park, an unusual park of contemporary art which is home to works by artists like Bruce Neuman, Richard Long, Sol LeWitt, Dan Graham and Robert Berry, international exponents of cultural trends tied to Arte Povera, Land Art and Minimalism.