My country
In Italy you couldn't find only art, monuments and history. In this land you'll find an higher diversity in the nature. There's a lot of people in Italy, and so there are small and fragmented natural areas. Only the 30% of the land is forested. But there's an higher variability in the soil, clime and atrophic activities. So there are small forest and natural areas but they are very different from each other. Friuli mountain is a one of the bigger wild areas in Italy. There are valleys were no one lives and only if you pay a lot of attention you can find the signs of the past presence of the man. The reason of this fact probably is that the mountains are near the plan. So when after the II world war there was and economic development all the people goes to cities and factories in the plan, in Switzerland, America or Australia.
Only in the inner part of Friuli, called Carnia, there was lesser emigration and we can find a village in every valley. Don't worry, today in northern Italy there's no difference in economic development in mountain and in the plan. So there's no more emigration. The human presence in Carnia is discrete, and so it has not modify the villages architecture and the life stile. There are few factories and the tourism is lesser invading as in Veneto or in Trentino. This things means a natural environment as in Triglavsiki park or in Carinzia, the nearer Slovenian and Austrian areas. This big and wild life now is colonized by bears, lynx and roe deers.
It seems that these animals are increasing their home range and density. There's no defined politic about them in Friuli, probably the public administration would evaluate how the people judge this phenomenon. Every conservation plan needs a strong public opinion contribute, and now we are waiting for this. These valleys have a variable clime. This means that in the same place there are a lot of different panoramas together, it depends if it's shining, raining, foggy or there's a snow cover.Flowers in lowlands
You could walk for hours in the rain or in the fog. Then look at one detail, as a salamander or a plant. You could find a wonderful nature in the plan, because there are large areas without agriculture. There are some stony areas, called Magredi, near the rivers Tagliamento, Cellina and Meduna. This are one of the few areas in the padan valley with a low human presence and modifies. Here you can find a lot of natural hares and (only few) larks. After some kilometers you can find lime and clay, this is the low plan. Here there's a lot of water and there is a great number of rivers and springs.
This areas and Marano and Grado lagoon are optimal areas for the birds during the winter. It's a marvelous panorama a lagoon filled of birds and oaks. Along the cost there are some tourist villages as Lignano and Bibione, but there are also some wild coasts as Vallevecchia near Caorle. There's a wonderful wild coast near Bibione. I have said a lot of things about the land called Friuli. But I have said nothing about the people that leaves on it. People character is simply and hard as the landscape. They know they have to work a lot to get something from the stony soil. This traits are more evident in the mountain area, the Carnia. Near the coast the character is more sweet and friendly, as the Venetians.
This is a presentation about the forest of the Friuli. It's a PDF document of about 1 MB size and 60 slides in Italian.