Along this route, the pulse of water and the breath of greenery intertwine with the centuries-old industry of humankind. It is an ancient weave: that of a community drawing from nature both the energy to produce and a convenient river port for trade. The canals, the beating arteries of the historic centre, evoke the songs of women bent over the washhouses along their banks. And if you brush against the city walls, you can enter Corte Policreti, where you encounter the statues of Bacchus and Ariadne: a pair that counterbalances the one placed at the edge of the city, on two pillars of the bridge. Here the statues of Adam and Eve — in fact Jupiter and Juno — watch over the point where architecture yields to the landscape.
“Anchora spero di meglio” (“I still hope for better”) is the ancient motto of the city’s first public school, but also a promise of new emotions. Like those evoked by the transparency of Nane Zavagno’s sculptures, where air becomes matter and intertwines with the green and blue tones of nature.
Today, as then, the lesson remains the same: harmony between humankind and the environment is a work of art in constant evolution.
Pordenone and its surrounding area lie within a belt of resurgent springs. Many places in the city reflect this long-standing abundance of water. Largo San Giorgio is one of them: here flows the Roggia dei Mulini — one of its few visible stretches — alongside a reconstructed washhouse, a fountain and the ponds behind the church.
The ponds were created by damming watercourses coming from the north, through a sluice system similar to the one still visible today. Over time, the water drop was used to power a mill, a fulling mill and a plant for grinding stones. The area later came under the management of Enel, before falling into a period of neglect.
Today, the site is undergoing a major environmental restoration project aimed at enhancing local flora and fauna.
Dove si trova: Largo S. Giorgio, 33170 Pordenone PN
Just a few steps take you from the hustle and bustle of the high street to the silence and tranquillity of a space where time seems to have stood still. It is one of Pordenone’s magical spots: the inner courtyard of Palazzo Popaite-Torriani Policreti.
The building was formed by the union of two structures, one from the fourteenth century and the other four centuries later. Here, the eighteenth-century statues of Bacchus and Ariadne invite you to pass through a small gate opened in the medieval bastions. The breach was created during the Venetian period, when the walls had already lost their defensive function.
In one corner of the courtyard, you can discover a brick well, now protected by a plexiglass cover.
The space reflects the privileges acquired over the centuries by the families who lived in the palace: private access to the city through the gate and the possibility of drawing water directly within their own courtyard.
Dove si trova:
This is the phrase engraved on the lintel of the door that once led to the now-demolished convent of San Filippo Neri. It is taken from the book *Nobiltà comune, et heroica, pensier nuovo e curioso* written by Lodovico Zuccolo (1568–1630) in 1625.
The first state school in Pordenone was established on the convent premises, next to the oratory. In 1685, the Town Council decided to open it for six poor but deserving children who would be chosen by the Council itself. The phrase can be interpreted in various ways, but it is nice to think that it was a message of hope addressed to the pupils crossing the threshold of the school: children from humble families who could look forward to a better future.
The Swiss poet Fabio Pusterla, whilst visiting Pordenone, wrote a short story bearing the same title as the inscription. In it, he writes that as he strolled amongst the buildings facing each other across the street “like stone sphinxes”, the city inspired a question in him: “On the lintel of a doorway, one reads: ‘Anchora spero di meglio’.” When I read it for the first time, I asked myself: are we capable of doing the same today?”.
Dove si trova: Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 48, 33170 Pordenone PN
Old photographs show women washing clothes in the water of the irrigation channels, on wooden boards carried alongside their baskets. These are just some of the many images from the late 19th and early 20th centuries that tell the story of a city rich in water and human activity.
Even today, you can still identify at least four fixed washhouses in the city, located along the Roggia dei Mulini and the Roggia Codafora. Their restored form and position help us understand how they were used and how, despite the hard work, they naturally became places of encounter and social life.
From the very beginning, as well as being used for washing clothes, the flowing waters of the irrigation channels protected the historic town, powered the waterwheels of numerous local mills, helped to extinguish fires and provided “fine crayfish, prized chub, trout and lampreys…”.
Dove si trova: Viale della Libertà, 25, 33170 Pordenone PN
The pedestrian bridge over the Noncello lies just a short distance from the historic centre. It stands on the site of the medieval port that brought prosperity to the city and gave it its name. From here, boats loaded with goods arrived and departed to and from Venice.
Built in 1550 to connect the city and the port to the church of the Santissima Trinità, it originally had three arches to span the large volume of water at that point.
In 1718 it was adorned with statues of Jupiter and Juno, which the local people renamed Adam and Eve.
Damaged by floods and rebuilt in the eighteenth century by Bartolomeo Ferracina (1692–1777), the same designer of the bridge in Bassano, it was destroyed during the First World War.
After the war, the bridge of Adam and Eve was rebuilt in iron and masonry, with a movable central section to allow boats to pass. This functional detail is important: in those years river traffic had greatly declined, but the aim was to revive the port by building on the renewed activity of the Cotonificio Veneziano in Torre.
This ambitious, forward-looking project was taken into account during the 2004 restoration works, which deliberately differentiated the materials of the walkway, using both stone and wood.
Dove si trova: Via della Santissima, 33170 Pordenone PN
In March 2026, the ‘Sentiero delle Operaie’ (Workers’ Path) was reopened; this is a route of around half a kilometre that female workers used to take in the last century to get to work at the Cotonificio Veneziano di Torre.
Built between 1839 and 1843 on a bend of the Noncello River by the Trieste brothers Beloz and their partner Blanch, the mill was a predominantly female world. At the height of its activity, between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the plant employed over a thousand women workers. Many were very young — the so-called “piccinine” (“little girls”) — who entered the factory to supplement the modest income of farming families.
Today, the route allows you to reach the Torre Archaeological Park and its museum on foot or by bike, passing through Galvani Park and the Seminary Park.
The path runs alongside the Noncello River; along the way, you also encounter an old washhouse.
Dove si trova: Viale delle Grazie, 55, 33170 Pordenone PN
You are now standing in front of the palace named after one of its illustrious residents: Vendramino Candiani (1820-1890), the first mayor of Pordenone after the unification of Italy. The exterior façade features a series of frescoes, including two noble coats of arms that tell a story of the city's administration, rooted in the Middle Ages.
The black owl with claws clinging to a step of four antlers, by Konrad von Auffenstein, and the coat of arms "gules, a pole argent," by Hartneid von Weißenegg, are the coats of arms of two Austrian captains, representatives of the Duke of Austria in the city, to whom Pordenone and the surrounding villages belonged from 1278 to 1508.
The official residence of the Austrian captain and his family was the castle, a building separate from the city, protected by its own walls and a drawbridge. An emblematic example of its time as a military building with a dual function: to defend the city from external attack and to defend itself from the city in the event of internal revolt.
The presence of these coats of arms, discovered during the palace's restoration in 2022, shed new light on Pordenone's ancient history.
Dove si trova: Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 23, 33170 Pordenone PN
Othmar Barth (1927–2010), an internationally renowned architect from South Tyrol with specialist expertise in church architecture, conceived the Diocesan Centre in Pordenone as a modern acropolis overlooking the Noncello River and nestled on a gently sloping hill.
The building, which stands in close dialogue with the Co-Cathedral of St Mark, rests on a terraced plinth from which the complex’s various sections emerge with a sense of strength and balance: the bishop’s residence, the offices of the Curia, Catholic associations and the weekly newspaper *Il Popolo*, the library, the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art, and the church of Mary, Most Holy Mother of the Church and Queen of Peace. The “skin” chosen for this architecture is characterised by the austerity of solid brick alternating with exposed reinforced concrete; the roofing combines steel and copper sheets.
It is a work in which landscape, water and sacred architecture come together to form an image that is both complex and clearly recognisable.
Dove si trova: Via Revedole, 1, 33170 Pordenone PN
Last updated: 13/06/2026 06:41