Udine by night!

The cute Piazza San Giacomo in the heart of the city and Udine`s castle (all pics by M. Rimati).

The Pignarul!

Another great reason to come to Udine? Why, the Pignarul fires of course! The Pignarul ritual takes place every January 6th, the day of Epiphany, when an old witch brings either gifts or coal to children (depending if they’ve been good or bad). The old Pignarul ritual, which has Celtic roots, was used in order to chase away negative “vibes” by burning old shrubbery (in modern times a witch doll is place on top of the Pignarul). This Pignarul consisted of old wooden crates, the ones used for selling fruits and vegetables! It was also lit up by none other than Udine's mayor, Furio Honsell.

The Pignarul was also used as a way of invoking the benevolence of Belen, the God of fire. Depending naturally on the way the wind blows, the direction of the smoke and flames will determine the positive or negative outcome of the entire year: if the smoke blows to the east, the year will be a good one. If the smokes instead blows to the west, the year won’t be one of the best (all pics by M. Rimati).

Snow!

And yes, there's even snow in Udine (on Nov. 24th). For a former Canadian resident (like me) who lived through only 30 years of rigid and freezing Canadian winters, well, it sort of felt like being right "at home" (all pics by M. Rimati)!

Great ol' bars!

Another great reason to come to Udine are some of the great little ol' bars (with also great snacks!) that you can find around just about every corner of the town. Here are just a few good watering holes (all pics by M. Rimati)!

Friuli DOC!

Another good reason to come to Udine? Friuli DOC! It takes place in September for four days in the centre of Udine. There are several food and wine stands (oh, do the folks here in Friuli LOVE to drink and eat! Can you blame them with some of the best wines in Italy?). It’s a nice way to walk around the town and take in the jovial atmosphere (all pics by M. Rimati)!

Some other great reasons to come to Udine: the national soccer team!

A few weeks ago Udine’s Stadio Friuli was host to the Italian (men’s) national soccer team for its qualifying match against tiny Georgia for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa (Italy won 2-0). The team’s training camp was about 30 kms from Udine, in Gradisca di Isonzo. Some pics include head coach Marcello Lippi, goalkeeper (the so-called “best in the world”) Gigi Buffon, team captain Fabio Cannavaro, Luca Toni, Vincenzo Iaquinta, the team’s “pit-bull”, Gennaro Gattuso, the great Alex Del Piero and the other members of the 2006 World Cup championship team (all pics by M. Rimati).

What a great concert scene too!

So what to say about the concert scene in Udine? Well, actually not bad. You’ve got something pretty well for every musical taste, from Gaelic to hard rock music and nearly everything in between. Here’s just an example of some of the great shows that have rolled into the Udine area for 2008:

-Guitar legend John McLaughlin at the Giovanni da Udine theatre in Udine;

-Canada’s Loreena McKennitt in Udine’s splendid castle (a very nice venue for concerts which has seen in the past the likes of B.B. King, John Mayall, The Blues Brothers Band, Patti Smith and Van Morrison). A nice little concert as we both hail from the same Canadian province, Manitoba!;

-Paul Simon of former Simon & Garfunkel fame, Udine’s castle;

-Mark Knopfler of former Dire Straits fame at the splendid Villa Manin, located about 15 kms from Udine (Villa Manin is a Venetian-style villa. It was the last residence of the Venetian doge, Ludovico Manin. It also hosted for just one night between August 27 and 28, 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine Beauharnais. It’s also in this very same villa that a treaty known as the “Trattato di Campoformio” was signed between France and Austria on October 17, 1797. Currently, the villa is home to a contemporary art centre);

-Guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani, Villa Manin;

-R.E.M, Villa Manin;

-Dionne Warwick at the beachside resort of Lignano (which was once called by Ernest Hemingway as the “Florida of Italy”!);

-Zucchero at the elegant beachside resort of Grado;

-Macy Gray in Tarvisio (a town located about 90 kms from Udine, right next to the Austrian border);

-Italy’s Gianna Nannini, Villa Manin (sister of Alessandro Nannini who once used to race in Formula 1);

-Vasco Rossi in Udine’s Friuli soccer stadium (perhaps the closest you can get to an Italian version of Bruce Springsteen! Rossi ALWAYS manages to pack them in whenever he plays around Italy);

-The rock opera "Notre Dame de Paris" at Villa Manin.

And some of these great concerts have come to us also thanks to Italian promoters such Azalea (www.azalea.it), Euritmica (http://www.euritmica.it/), Folkest (http://www.folkest.com/) and No Borders Music Festival
(http://www.nobordersmusicfestival.com/).

My only hope now that AC/DC has come out with their new album, “Black Ice”, is that these same promoters will ALSO bring them to the Friuli stadium. Pandemonium guaranteed (all pics by M. Rimati)!!!