Aquileia, an important Roman city to visit absolutely!

As you can see, below the photo above I have left you the GPS coordinates because if you are in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, you can easily find this place, and I can assure you that you will be impressed by the exploration you can do there. In fact, Aquileia is located in the province of Udine, in one of the regions of northern Italy, probably where tourism is less widespread, but which instead has beautiful tourist attractions within it, including the city of Aquileia.

You should know that the tourist site of Aquileia has been under UNESCO protection since 1998 for being a heritage site of enormous value. And certainly in history, the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta has been an important point in the journey of numerous pilgrims travelling from the port of Trieste to Venice, in fact the city of Aquileia is located halfway along this route. Think about the fact that this was the seat of the medieval patriarchate, one of the most important figures of the Christian Church after Rome, which is why over time a real city grew up around this important church, unlike today when there are only 3500 inhabitants. You have to imagine that given the importance of this church, it was embellished with the best frescoes that we unfortunately do not see today because they have been covered over over time, and the best mosaics that fortunately have survived to the present day and are still visible if you are lucky enough to visit this church internally.

It seems, that there is a legend linked to this place, it is said that the villain Attila came from here, and that to avoid any form of plundering of this beautiful church, the locals practically took all the gold and valuables he hid in one place, which was then never found again and some claim that this treasure is still hidden in these places, who knows if this is true?

When I visited this basilica, I read the numerous information signs, that here is the largest mosaic in Europe, in fact the floor of the basilica is all one mosaic, which fortunately over time thanks to numerous restorations is still intact.

One of the tips I can give you, is to dedicate a full day to visit this important archaeological site, because in addition to the basilica, there are other important Roman artefacts to see, just think that many years later in this place many archaeologists are still digging, and when I visited I saw that they were unearthing a small amphitheatre, hopefully it will be open to visitors later. It is always so exciting to see these things, even though unfortunately a large part has been destroyed, and it is impossible to understand the grandeur of this place. Also because these excavations take a lot of time and a lot of money, which unfortunately the state does not want to invest.