Vipava
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Vipava is the center of the Upper Vipava Valley. Located around several sources of Vipava river, the town itself probably dates from before Middle Ages. Ruins of a castle on a hill some 100 m above the old part of the town are just a reminiscence of those days. A baroque-style Lanthieri castle in the town center is another.

It is interesting that the famous Italian dramatist Carlo Goldoni at his age of 20 stayed in Lanthieri castle as Goldoni himself describes in Memoirs (Part I, page 103 in the English translation from 1814). He first went from Udine where he was studying law, to Gorizia, where his father was physician at that time and count Lanthieri was his patient. Gorizia is described as the capital of the Austrian Friuli, while Lanthieri was inspector of Austrian troops in Carniola and German Friuli. From Gorizia, they soon continued to Vipava (named Vipack in the Memoirs), said to be 'a very considerable market town in Carniola', where they spent whole four months 'in the most agreable manner possible'. Goldoni writes that in Carniola, nobility pays visits in whole family so that maybe 30 can be seen visiting at a time, including servants. Since count Lanthieri was of weak health, he was not visitng others, but others often visited his castle. Food was not delicate but abundant. Mentioned is a roast dish that consisted of mutton leg or deer meat or veal breast as a base, topped by pheasants, partridges and other birds arranged as a pyramid. It was also a habit to serve three sorts of soups at each meal (a bread soup, a herb soup and peeled barley in meet gravy). Wines were excellent and specially mentioned is one called 'children-getter' that was much joked about. He reports that he had troubles drinking so much wine and that this was linked to many toasts. Unusual glasses (called glo-glo) are described that consisted of balls and tubes and that produced sound when wine was drunk from them. From Vipava, Goldoni and his father traveled to Palmanova.

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For a brief description check Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipava%2C_Slovenia.

Vipava community has its Web page (in Slovenian) at http://www.vipava.si/.

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