1€ x 1km for Nagaye Project

1€ x 1km is an idea that came up to my mind after my employer, Xanadu Consultancy ltd, called for a Charity Hackathon.

What's a Hackathon? Normally conceived in technology fields, specially like IT / Computer Science. It's a sort of competition/challenge where in a set period of time you'll have to come up with an innovative solution to solve a problem/provide a product or service. So a Charity Hackathon is something you have to end up with a Charity initiative.

So I thought of combining my greatest passion, cycling, with some good purpose, gathering money for Charity, and where to give those money came up to my mind quite quickly as I have a friend called Davide Tommasin striving for something called Nagaye Project - Chain of Love, in help of poor people of Tigray region in northern Ethiopia.

I'm adding all the links so if you want more details you can surf straight to the source.

Fund raising for determining the length of the cycle was carried on here and opened from end of August 2018 to the 10th of September (but you can still donate): by that time we gathered 380 € and I really want to thank all the charitable people (mostly collegues from Xanadu) who contributed.
Especially mr. David Mills who demostrated being VERY charitable (or hating me ;-D ). Cheers Dave!

I know 380kms is not much of an adventure for those experienced randonneurs but since I have no experience of bike rides beyond 200 kms me and Davide decided to split the tour in two sessions very close together so we'll actually pedal 380 kms in one go but with a short night stop to make sure we close it off and I'm able to go back to work on monday :D yep, because that's going to happen in the weekend between 29th and 30th September 2018.

The route

We had few ideas but ended up with this one: a tour of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, touching all four main cities (provinces) and four nice and important Unesco sites.

We'll leave from Aquileia because Davide lives there. Aquileia was founded in 131 b.c. and has been a very important Roman city at the time, representing one of the main centres for Christianity in ancient ages, being now a unique archeological site, along with being one of Unesco's Heritage centres in Italy.

We'll then reach Palmanova, which is a world's unique wonder, being a star-shaped city, once used to be a whole fortress. Palmanova is another Unesco site in Friuli!

From Palmanova we'll pass through Friuli's plains, touching Muzzana del Turgnano where Nagaye Project Italy has an headquarter.

From there we'll move to Pordenone, one of the four main cities of Friuli, then heading north through the so-called "Magredi" area; Magredi are poor (for agriculture) terrains and fields made of pebbles but very rich in flora and fauna. We'll pass through the small but very graceful town of Spilimbergo, known for hosting a Jew community. Spilimbergo is now worldwide known for its mosaic school.

After Spilimbergo we'll cross the river Tagliamento popping into San Daniele del Friuli, the well known town of proscutto (ham). Keeping the north direction we'll pop over to the Cavazzo lake, aka "The Three Municipalities Lake", passing through quiet and delicious roads on the right hand side of the Tagliamento River and touching the beautiful natural reserve of Cornino Lake.

Cavazzo to Venzone is short but we'll start feeling tired I guess so a stop in the beautiful small town, just one step away from the mountains, will be needed. Venzone was severely damaged during 1976's earthquake but was well rebuild and is now another Unesco site. Some mummies are kept there also, in a museum. We hope we won't be so tired looking like them!

Venzone down to Udine we'll be over 200km so we'll stop in Ciconicco di Fagagna, at my place, for a comforting dinner and few hours of sleep.

<Fagagna | Udine>

 On the following day, sunday we'll pop over to Udine, a small but very nice city, second one of the four main in Friuli.

 Udine to Cividale will take us more than 30 minutes but less than an hour. Cividale, in Roman times known as Forum Iulii (from which Friuli) is a Unesco Heritage site and with its Longobardic Temple is worth a visit if you like those medieval locations lying just few steps away from beautiful mountains and forests.

From Cividale, passing through beautiful wine hills known as "Collio" where best of wines are produced, we'll reach Gorizia, another important town of Friuli, where we'll need a stop to taste some Pljeskavica as the Festival "Gusti di frontiera" will be going on right there, right that day.

Gorizia, down the Carso region we'll end up in Trieste, a special corner of Italy, where cultures and history mix together in front of a beautiful coast.

Our last effort will bring us from Trieste to pretty Grado, the so-called sunny island in the middle of the friulian laguna, where we'll blink for the last time to the Adriatic sea before moving back to Aquileia in a 10ish kms.

Route trace

is here.

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Timetable (approx, without stops)