Castles, Mansions and Estates in the Alps-Adriatic Area

The film focuses on the history and stories of noble estates and special people in Carinthia and Friuli-Venezia Giulia against the backdrop of an impressive landscape between mountains, rolling hills and the blue Adriatic Sea.

The provence of Carinthia and the province of Friuli, in the heart of the Alpe-Adriatic region, are linked not only by a geographical neighbourhood, but also by a common history dating back almost two thousand years, which continues to have an impact on culture. In Carinthia, builders from Friuli were hired to build the new capital city of Klagenfurt in the 16th century and later to rebuild or erect one or the other castle. And for centuries, when the region did not yet know its present borders, many Carinthian nobles once again determined the fate of much of today’s Friuli. There were even Friulian noble families with seats and votes in the Carinthian parliament.

The filmic journey leads from the Mageregg and Hochosterwitz castles in Carinthia to such magnificent estates in Friuli as Villa Manin, Villa Pace, Villa Tissano or the castle of Villalta on to the town villas of Gorizia/Gorica or Miramare Castle on a rocky outcrop near Trieste.

The two filmmakers have been guests at Contessa Maria Teresa Christalnigg von und zu Gillitzstein in the Villa Cigolotti Montereale, Teresa Pace Perusini in the Villa Pace and Conte Giorgio Strassoldo in the two castles of Strassoldo.

In Trieste, also known as “Vienna by the Sea”, the journey leads to the oldest coffee house in the city, Café San Marco. To this day, the once Austrian port city with its imperial buildings exudes Habsburg flair. And one gets the impression that this patch of earth – as the writer Paolo Maurensig put it – is actually the universe in small format.