Marano Lagunare

Sailing, already from far away can be glimpsed the millenary Tower occhieggiare on this place suspended, which now seems a world unto itself. Starting from its harvesting position, between the last coastal tip of Lignano and the lagoon of Grado, and protected from the open sea by a series of islands and islets, as those of Martignano and Sant’Andrea, also known as the Island of the shells.

Until the end of the nineteenth century, here, everything was surrounded by walls: even the Turks in the Sixteenth Century, managed to make the breach. And the Republic of Venice, which ruled these lands from the fifteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, he sought in every way to keep close. The people are still grateful: La Serenissima respected local autonomy and the maranesi are saying that still today, with pride, to be the only country friulano where it speaks the veneto. But, in addition to having created frames linguistic and cultural, Venice has left to Marano is also a strong architectural imprint.

The historic center is a succession of narrow streets and small squares, toward which the houses you push, ushering in common spaces of encounter and outdoor work. The buildings are dressed with usable items that tell a story ancient: bas-reliefs, faces of stone, coats of arms.

Here, in the lagoon, opens the Regional Natural Reserve Foci dello Stella, which is not raggiungile overland. Water is the only track through which one arrives at the delta of the river Stella, you can climb up to the locality of Precenicco and Palazzolo dello Stella. Leaving the boat at a marina it is possible to visit the area with the appropriate tourist motorships. We are thus entering a microcosm exceptional, a true paradise for bird watchers: among the reeds that flank the river bed, living, among others, marsh harriers, real swans, red herons, gray herons and white.

From one of the branches more suggestive of the delta, in a path taken by almost forty years by a motorboat that guide the tourists to discover the lagoon, it enters the extreme mouth. Before the eyes opens a spectacle of rare beauty: a village of Casoni. Facts of the barrel and wood, kept at the center a hearth and were furnished only with the necessary for survival. All the huts look west: is the slope of the most sheltered from winds of bora and tramontana. A wooden landing stage today allows docking.

Every year on the Sunday after the 15 june, not to be missed is the feast of San Vito with the ancient procession in the sea.