Tuesday, April 25: Udine

The trip over was long and uncomfortable...the Alitalia 767 had the most
uncomfortable seats yet and the plane was packed. To add insult to injury, the
food was almost uneatable. Combined with an hour delay getting off the ground
from Milan, by the time we reached Venice airport, it was about 4 pm Italian
time. Thankfully, the baggage arrived without delay, we got a free upgrade on
the rental car to an automatic transmission so Diana can do some driving, and we
got on the autostrada for Friuli very quickly.

The weather was sunny and pleasant-a fitting welcome back to Italy for us. Our
first stop is Udine, a provincial capital in the Region of Friuli
Venezia-Giulia, llocated about 100 km north and east of Venice. The terrain in
this area of Italy is flat, flat, flat and we passed many vineyards on our way
to Udine. We had no trouble getting into town and in just over an hour, we were
diligently following the signs to our hotel, the Astoria Hotel Italia. However,
I missed the last crucial turn and we were unable reach the hotel front
entrance...a mistake that required us to drive around for about 10 minutes to
get back to the right place.

We checked in and deposited the car in the hotel garage. The hotel seemed very
nice--our room was quite large, even though we got a real good "travel agent"
price; it is located very close to the center of town, and has nice public
spaces. I made a quck stab at trying to hook the computer and check my e-mail,
but I was unable to make it work. I had visions of a repeat of my computer
problems of our previous trip; however, I resolved not to get myself too worked
up about it.

Taking my map and guidebooks in hand, I took about an hour to stroll through the
streets of the centro storico. My first impressions of the town were quite
positive; the center of town is mostly car free, the main squares were handsome
and lots of people were sitting at sidewalk cafes and wine bars. The strange
thing was that at 6:30 most of the stores were closed up tight. I later learned
that it was Liberation Day, the celebration of the end of World War II in Italy,
which accounted for the lack of commercial activity.

We had dinner at one of the many traditional osterie in town....informal
restaurants with good local food and wine. We ate at Vecchio Stallo, which in
its early days during the 19th century, had been a stable for boarding horses.
It was quite busy, even though it was midweek; the clientele was mostly locals
with a smattering of tourists like us. The couple at the next table even had a
copy of our favorite restaurant book, Osterie d'Italia, translated into German.

The food was hearty and mostly good. Excellent San Daniele ham for a starter
(the ham is a rival of Parma's prosciutto), followed by an unusal but tasty
gnocchi dish with a sauce that had a strong presence of cinnamon. Diana's first
course was a local specialty--orzo (barley) and bean soup--but it was a little
bland and slightly gummy. She had another local specialty for her second
course--a frico (a fried cheese concoction), which was very good--served with
the ubiquitous polenta, which was too heavy for her taste, but fine for mine. I
had a frittata with herbs for my second course--good but not exceptional--some
polenta, and "brovada", a marinated turnip dish, not unlike sauerkraut--the
cuisine is strongly influenced by Slovenian and middle European food. The "vino
della casa" was a very drinkable cabernet. Neither of us had room or energy for
dessert, so we headed back to the hotel and crashed as the effects of the long
flight and the time change caught up to us.

Before falling asleep, I made some progress in resolving the computer problems,
but most of them were left for the next day.