Castions di Strada

Castions di Strada lies on the line of the risorgive, where the water that has passed through the lenses of clay and sand of the low plain comes back to the surface, filtered and clear, forming small streams that after a few kilometres end in the Friulian lagoon or are lost in the wet meadows. That cool water keeps the ground temperature low, and this has allowed a far older flora to stay where it was: in the meadows survive the Armeria helodes, the black rush and the alpine butterwort, a small bog plant that is a glacial relict, a survivor of the last ice age. Water birds, too, find food here.

The name, on the other hand, comes from the road. Along the line of the springs the Romans had built a series of fortifications to protect the road that came down from Codroipo towards Aquileia: one of these was called Castellorum, a diminutive of castellum, and it is from there that Castions derives. The road today called Stradalta is instead the Napoleonic one, laid out by Napoleon but following a much older track; in the Middle Ages armies passed along it, and caravans of pilgrims bound for the great sanctuaries, and it was for them that shelters and places of worship arose along the route. The church of San Pellegrino at Morsano, of the tenth century, had a hospice for pilgrims beside it: today only its altarpiece remains, kept in the parish church. In 967 the village entered, by donation of bishop Liutprand, the possessions of the church of Aquileia. One detail of the coat of arms: the eagle is perched on a staff, but in several reproductions somebody has drawn it on a bastion.