Cividale del Friuli Events

Mittelfest

Ten days in July of theatre, music and dance from central Europe, staged in the churches, courtyards and squares of a very small town. It was founded in 1991, as Yugoslavia was breaking apart, explicitly to keep a conversation going across a border that had just become dangerous again. It remains the most serious thing that happens here and it fills every bed in the district.

The Palio di San Donato

In late August the town's quarters compete in a medieval costume tournament with archery, a procession and a market, tied to the patronal feast.

Epiphany

The messa dello spadone in the duomo on 6 January is a rite in which a deacon reads the gospel holding a sword, a survival from the patriarchal period that exists nowhere else.

The autumn wine weekends

The Colli Orientali estates open through October and November, with the new wine and the first pressing of oil, and the cellars here are small enough that the person pouring is usually the person who made it.

The river in August

Not an event, but the rhythm of the summer: the gravel banks under the bridge fill with families every hot afternoon.

Burnjak

In October the Slovene-speaking villages above the town hold their chestnut festival, with roasting, music and dancing in a hamlet of a few dozen people. It is a minority community's own day rather than an attraction, and visitors are welcome at it.

Markets

Saturday morning in the centre, and it draws the valleys as well as the town; the gubana bakers sell there too.