My friends and I seized the moment to meet again in our own little hometown, San Vito al Tagliamento, Pordenone. We have lived far from each other: Sydney, Manchester and France. So, during this Christmas Holidays we went back to one of Italian best social local habits: having a "spritz".
A Spritz is a typical cocktail of North-East of Italy, around the Triveneto area, in which I was born. As I known from history, the original drink had been a creation of the soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to which our lands were subdued to during the XVIII century. At that time, the military people used to dilute the white wine (or Prosecco in Venice area) with sparkling water, then it came to these days with different variations within, as people started to add red non-alcoholic aperitifs, such as Aperol, Campari or Select and a fistful of ice.
Every city has its own "recipe" for this unusual soft cocktail, but, overall, the most famous one is the Spritz-Aperol. At the girls' meeting I had one of that, a round big glass with the white wine, Aperol, sparkling water, ice and a slice of orange. I went for the tradition, while my two friends, Deborah and Giulia chose to have the Spritz-Gazosa, the latter a soft drink very similar to lemonade: it is colourless, sugary, non-alcoholic and light bubbly with a part of citric acid in the chemical base. Thus, my peers had glasses with white wine, Gazosa, sparkling water, ice and lemon.
With the drinks there always are savoury snacks, such as pieces of bread with mortadella on the top, green olives, potato chips or salted biscuits.
The venue we gathered together is a new up-to-date space facing the court of the restored Medieval Castle in the city-centre documented from the year 1249 and it is called "Corte del Castello" (The Castle's Court).
The café's interiors are very trendy and cosy. I appreciate the combo between the pink arabesque pattern within the wall paper under the bench, and the shiny black chandelier.
The same decoration is proposed again in other spaces of the building, in white and silver and in black and white – coupled with a transparent chandelier - in the bathroom. I am impressed by the stylish combination of a modern-baroque framed mirror and the chunky woven soap dish, which is the element of contrast within the design structure.
Behind us, a girl with a distant expression in her wide green eyes is looking far away, maybe beyond people's million voices and thoughts, searching for a quieter place for her.
