How big is the Friulian Dolomites Nature Park?

36,950 hectares, as the authority states on its own introduction page. It is the larger of the two parks in Friuli Venezia Giulia. The same authority also runs the Forra del Cellina regional nature reserve, another 304 hectares.

What is the highest peak in the park?

The Cridola, 2,851 metres. Then come Cima dei Preti at 2,706 metres, the Duranno at 2,652 and the Monfalconi di Montanaia at 2,548.

Which municipalities give access to the park?

Eight: Andreis, Cimolais, Claut and Erto e Casso in the Valcellina, Forni di Sopra and Forni di Sotto in the upper Tagliamento valley, Frisanco and Tramonti di Sopra towards Val Tramontina. All but the two Forni are in the province of Pordenone; those two are in the province of Udine.

Where are the park office and the visitor centres?

The administrative office is in Cimolais, in the same building as the visitor centre devoted to wildlife. The other centres are at Andreis, Claut, Erto e Casso, Forni di Sopra, Forni di Sotto, Poffabro and Tramonti di Sopra, plus the one for the Forra del Cellina reserve at Barcis. Opening is seasonal.

Can you pitch a tent or pick mushrooms?

The park asks you to pitch a tent only in case of real necessity. For mushrooms you need a permit from the competent authorities. Fires may be lit only in equipped areas, and fossils, rocks and minerals must not be collected.

What is the Campanile di Val Montanaia?

An isolated rock tower in the middle of a glacial cirque, ringed by the spires of the Monfalconi, in Val Cimoliana. It is the symbol of the park and was first climbed in 1902 by the Austrians Saar and Von Glanvell.

Friulian Dolomites Nature Park: valleys and visitor centres

This is the larger of the two parks in Friuli Venezia Giulia: 36,950 hectares across the provinces of Pordenone and Udine, in the Valcellina, the upper Tagliamento valley and towards Val Tramontina. The Region established it in 1996.

What defines it is an absence: there are no villages inside, and no road crosses the protected area. There are only a few valley-floor approach roads and service tracks that do not link the main valleys to each other. You cross this park on foot, and that is the only way.

These mountains lie east of the frame of our map: what you find here is the park itself, not individual trail pages. Below: how to visit, the peaks and valleys, the rock and the Vajont, the municipalities and the visitor centres, the wildlife, the history.

A park without roads: how to visit it

The path network comes in two parts. Themed trails stay close to the villages, are open to everyone and some of them to people with disabilities: they are there to explain the park before you go in. The primary paths, marked with wooden signs and shown in the park's own publications, cross the valleys. Every other route is harder, with few waymarks or none: the park leaves them that way on purpose, to keep traditional mountaineering alive and, at the same time, to protect the remotest areas.

The shelters are casere, mountain refuges and bivouacs, not hotels: the park asks you to use them only if you really need to and to follow the notices posted at the door. On the valley floor there are signed car parks and parking areas: that is where you leave the car.

The visitor's code, in short:

Dogs: on the lead; if you meet wild animals, do not approach or startle them
Fires: only in the equipped areas
Fossils, rocks and minerals: not to be collected
Tents: pitch one only in case of real necessity
Mushrooms: you need a permit from the competent authorities
Drones: any overflight, whether for tourism, leisure or sport, must first be checked and authorised by the park authority, by writing to its address
Rubbish: take it home, including other people's if you feel like picking it up
Unexploded ordnance: if you find any, do not touch it, report it to the park
Paths: prefer the primary ones, marked with wooden signs

The peaks, the valleys and the Campanile di Val Montanaia

The highest summit is the Cridola, 2,851 metres. Then come Cima dei Preti at 2,706, the Duranno at 2,652, the Monfalconi di Montanaia at 2,548, the Pramaggiore at 2,478, the Cornaget at 2,323, the Turlon at 2,312, the Caserine at 2,306, the Vacalizza at 2,266, the Borgà at 2,228, the Chiarescons at 2,168, Vetta Fornezze at 2,110, the Ressetum at 2,067, the Dosaip at 2,062, the Raut at 2,025, the Castello at 1,923, the Toc at 1,921 and the Frascola at 1,961.

The valleys and watercourses the park lists are the Zemola, the Vajont, the Cimoliana, the Settimana, the Cellina, the Silisia, the Meduna, the Poschiadea, the Dria, the Giaf and the river Tagliamento. Val Cimoliana is the heart of the park.

Its emblem is the Campanile di Val Montanaia: an isolated rock tower in the middle of a glacial cirque, ringed by the spires of the Monfalconi. The Austrians Saar and Von Glanvell climbed it first in 1902, and it has been a goal for climbers ever since. Further south, on Monte Borgà at 2,200 metres, there is an erosion feature locally called the books of San Daniele: rock layers that peel apart like pages. And at Casavento you can see fossil dinosaur footprints.

The rock: faults, glaciers and the Vajont landslide

The geology here is in motion, and you can read it on the ground. Three major tectonic lines cross the area: the Upper Tagliamento line, the Monte Duranno-Alto Meduna thrust and the Periadriatic thrust, which can be picked out near Andreis, south of Monte Raut, where it shapes a landscape of its own. The commonest rock is Dolomia Principale, and upper Triassic dinosaur footprints are widespread across the whole system.

Glaciers filled every valley here until a few thousand years ago: what remains are the cirques carved into the flanks, the moraines and the earth pyramids. Faults, thrusts and fractures alternate with those deposits.

Then there are the deposits of the Monte Toc landslide, the Vajont one. The park describes them as a unique example of a colossal landslide and, at the same time, as the memory of the 1963 disaster. The Vajont dam information point and the Erto e Casso visitor centre tell that story; the second is one of the fullest documentation centres on the disaster.

The municipalities and the visitor centres

There are eight municipalities. In the Valcellina, province of Pordenone: Andreis, Cimolais, Claut, Erto e Casso. In the upper Tagliamento valley, province of Udine: Forni di Sopra and Forni di Sotto. Towards Val Tramontina, back in the province of Pordenone: Frisanco and Tramonti di Sopra.

Each municipality has its own visitor centre with a different themed exhibition. At Cimolais, on the ground floor of the building that also houses the park's offices, the theme is wildlife: opened in 2008 and later redesigned, it has an interactive floor, animal calls in sound drawers and a model of the park boundary. At Poffabro, a hamlet of Frisanco and one of Italy's officially listed loveliest villages, the centre occupies the old dairy and deals with cheese-making and summer grazing. At Barcis there is the centre of the Forra del Cellina regional nature reserve, 304 hectares run by the same park authority.

Opening is seasonal: weekends for much of the year and daily at the height of summer. At Cimolais, in 2026, the continuous opening ran from 25 July to 6 September. Outside those periods, check the calendar on the park's site before driving a long way.

Wildlife and plants: an eagle in every valley

The first figure the park gives is the golden eagle: one breeding pair is estimated in every valley. For the authority that is the sign of a healthy environment, because an eagle occupying every available territory means prey is plentiful.

Chamois, roe deer, red deer, marmots, capercaillie and black grouse are resident, along with a colony of ibex that the park describes as steadily expanding.

The flora is rich because these valleys sheltered species during the glacial advances, and some of them stayed isolated here. Among the endemic plants the authority names Arenaria huteri, Gentiana froelichi, the lady's slipper orchid (Cypripedium calceolus) and Daphne blagayana, found in Italy in the Raut and Tramonti area only in 1989.

How it came about, and the UNESCO link

The idea dates from 1973, in a document titled First proposals for the establishment of a park in the upper Valcellina. Five years later the Regional Planning Scheme listed this area among those to be protected. Between 1986 and 1989 a conservation and development plan was drawn up; in 1990 the municipalities of Andreis, Cimolais, Claut, Erto e Casso and Forni di Sopra adopted it and the park was born under the name Parco delle Prealpi Carniche. Forni di Sotto joined in 1991. The initiative, in other words, came from the municipalities.

Only in 1996 did the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, with regional law 42 of 30 September, definitively establish the Friulian Dolomites Regional Nature Park, bringing it into line with the national framework law on protected areas.

Its mountains form system 4 of the Dolomites UNESCO site, Dolomiti Friulane e d'Oltre Piave: 21,461 hectares across Pordenone, Udine and a corner of Belluno, between the Piave, the upper Tagliamento, Val Tramontina and Val Cellina. From north to south the system takes in the Cridola, the Monfalconi with the Campanile di Val Montanaia, the Spalti di Toro, the Duranno group and Cima dei Preti. The park also belongs to the Alpine Network of Protected Areas and to the network of Dolomite parks set up by the UNESCO Foundation. The rules of the other Dolomite parks, side by side, are in our guide to the parks.

Frequently asked questions

How big is the Friulian Dolomites Nature Park?: 36,950 hectares, as the authority states on its own introduction page. It is the larger of the two parks in Friuli Venezia Giulia. The same authority also runs the Forra del Cellina regional nature reserve, another 304 hectares.
What is the highest peak in the park?: The Cridola, 2,851 metres. Then come Cima dei Preti at 2,706 metres, the Duranno at 2,652 and the Monfalconi di Montanaia at 2,548.
Can you drive across the park?: No. There are no through roads and no villages inside the protected area: only a few valley-floor approach roads and service tracks that do not link the main valleys. You leave the car in the signed car parks and parking areas and continue on foot.
Which municipalities give access to the park?: Eight: Andreis, Cimolais, Claut and Erto e Casso in the Valcellina, Forni di Sopra and Forni di Sotto in the upper Tagliamento valley, Frisanco and Tramonti di Sopra towards Val Tramontina. All but the two Forni are in the province of Pordenone; those two are in the province of Udine.
Where are the park office and the visitor centres?: The administrative office is in Cimolais, in the same building as the visitor centre devoted to wildlife. The other centres are at Andreis, Claut, Erto e Casso, Forni di Sopra, Forni di Sotto, Poffabro and Tramonti di Sopra, plus the one for the Forra del Cellina reserve at Barcis. Opening is seasonal.
Can you pitch a tent or pick mushrooms?: The park asks you to pitch a tent only in case of real necessity. For mushrooms you need a permit from the competent authorities. Fires may be lit only in equipped areas, and fossils, rocks and minerals must not be collected.
What is the Campanile di Val Montanaia?: An isolated rock tower in the middle of a glacial cirque, ringed by the spires of the Monfalconi, in Val Cimoliana. It is the symbol of the park and was first climbed in 1902 by the Austrians Saar and Von Glanvell.