Novice skier Amy McPherson found the perfect place to learn in Sauris, Friuli-Venezia Giulia – but it wasn’t the skiing that truly captured her heart…
Words and photos © Amy McPherson
Let me begin by admitting that skiing is not my forté. I do, however, have a fascination with snow and thought that perhaps it was time to improve my skills.
I’d come to Sauris, a small comune in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, on the recommendation of friends back home, who told me that there would be different levels of ski areas here, and one particularly family-friendly slope that even I would have no trouble with.
“It’s not very difficult,” said Veronica Schneider, my ski instructor, as she gently guided me onto the pull-lift and then patiently glided with me down the slope.
It took a couple of goes, but I soon started to relax and was able to enjoy the storybook atmosphere of the mountainous surroundings dotted with traditional wooden houses.
Even so, after the fifth run, I realised that I was simply not built for snow sports.
Luckily for me, however, Sauris isn’t just a place to ski.
In fact, it was named by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation as one of the 32 Best Tourist Villages in the World in 2022, in recognition of the ancient traditions that are actively maintained here. So, I hung up the ski boots and went exploring.
Language and culture in Sauris
Sauris – or Zahre as it is called in the local German dialect – is a two-centred village community in a remote valley in the Carnian Alps, comprising Sauris di Sopra and Sauris di Sotto – Upper Sauris and Lower Sauris.
Getting here requires a long, slow drive along winding mountain roads with tunnels that were cut by manual labour during the Mussolini years.
So even today, Sauris is still rather isolated.
Legend has it that the village was founded in the 12th century by two defecting German soldiers who had come here to hide from the war.
What is certainly true is that the German influence, including in the local language, remains strong in this community of 400 people, who are believed to have originally come from southern Bavaria.
At the Centro Etnografico di Sauris (also known as the Haus van der Zahre), I learned some of the many stories of Sauris – about its culture, and of the people whose strong link to their ancestry is what is keeping many of the old traditions alive here.
Lucia Protto, who works at the museum, is one of the teachers of the old language.
Officially called Saurano in Italian, but known here as de zahrar sproche, it is spoken by 200 people here, alongside the regional Friulano dialect and standardised Italian language.
Lucia gives lessons to students in schools once a week, and also holds adult lessons to help promote the use of the language.
“It was more a spoken language, and nothing was written down, and the language was passed down generations through verbal ways,” explained Lucia, “until a German priest wrote a set of poems in our language at the end of the 19th century.”
From the archives, Lucia produces a blue handwritten notebook to show me. It was the very first written version of Saurano by the priest.
“He wrote how he spoke, so it is mixed with the German language a little. For example, in our language where we pronounced ‘b’, he used ‘w’ in the writing. He wrote as the Germans would.” Lucia said.
Back at my hotel, Hotel Garni Plueme, a typical mountain house whose foundations date to 1685, I chatted to the owner, Luca Schneider. Luca is 51, and he remembers speaking Saurano as a child.
His family had previously spoken Saurano as their first language. However, Luca is afraid that the language will be lost in the next generation.
“My mother and father spoke it fluently. I speak it okay,” he said. “But with only 200 people speaking this language in the whole world, there is no real purpose for our children to learn this language.”
Carnevale mask-making
While Sauris’s language faces an uncertain future, some other traditions continue to feature in the culture of this small community.
The annual Carnevale that is widely celebrated throughout Italy retains its historical authenticity in Sauris.
During the festivities, villagers wear wooden masks or laced veils, and clothing that represents the various occupations of the community – butchers, millers, seamstresses – and they play pranks on each other.
“You can be whoever you want during Carnevale. The masks hide your identity, so even your neighbours shouldn’t know it’s you when you pour water over them!” explains Fabiana from the Sauris tourist office.
The event is headlined by the two main characters, the bell-ringing Rölar and mischievous Kheirar, king of the masks. It ends with a lantern parade through the forest and a giant bonfire.
When it comes to making the wooden masks, the locals have one man to turn to.
In his workshop tucked away in Sauris di Sopra, Herman Plozzer chips away at blocks of timber to create beautiful sculptures.
Today, he runs wood-carving workshops, mostly for locals to carve their own masks, but also accepting commissions of larger works from elsewhere in Italy and abroad.
Weaving is another craft that has maintained a traditional approach by passionate Sauranos. And it isn’t uncommon to see men weave, as traditionally, men were the weavers and women worked on the cultivation and creation of the cloths.
If you visit the village’s Tessitura Artigiana di Sauris-Zahre weaver workshop, you’ll find Cristian Petris working over the delicate threads of the loom.
Hailing from the local family of ham producers, Cristian took up weaving when he decided to do something different from the family business.
Today he makes textiles using natural fibres of wool, linen, hemp and cotton to create beautiful pieces of men’s and women’s clothing and accessories. His family still makes hams.
Prosciutto di Sauris
There are countless hams in Italy, but Sauris has one of the most famous styles in the whole country.
On a visit to the Prosciuttificio Wolf Sauris factory, I discover that here even prosciutto is made with traditions in mind.
The IGP smoked ham of Sauris from Wolf is famous all over Italy because the producer is so passionate about preserving the traditional methods of ham production that much of the production, including the salting, drying and smoking, is still processed by hand and with natural resources.
“What makes this ham special is the smoking we do. In fact, we still use the old brick oven to burn the wood rather than gas-burning smoke,” said Stefano Petris, the factory boss. “In Italy there are so many prosciuttos; we are a smaller production and we really stand out this way.”
Where there is ham, cheese must follow, and so I followed Fabiana into the basement at cheese cellar Malga Alta. Here, the cheeses are made from the mountain pastures, then collected to be stored in the cellar, then sold in the shop front with cheeses from neighbouring villages.
“The pasture of Sauris is 1,500 to 1,800 metres in altitude, and the cows eat herbs from the high mountains. That’s what makes delicious cheese,” explained Sebastian as we walked through a cellar lined with barrels upon barrels of the stuff.
There are countless hams in Italy, but Sauris has one of the most famous styles in the country
“We also make a cheese from residue of beer making,” he added. “It’s like recycling!”
So is there also a brewery in the village? Of course there is!
Unlike the other culinary traditions here, beer production in Sauris is new. The village’s Zahre Beer brewery was founded in 1999 by two brothers, Sandro and Massimo Petris, who had come into beer brewing out of curiosity, learning by trial and error, to eventually establish the brewery in Sauris, one of the first agricultural breweries in Italy that uses self-cultivated malt.
“We decided to brew beer in Sauris because we felt Sauris needed something different,” said Massimo as he handed me a glass of his brew to taste. “Because you think we are famous for the prosciutto, and when you eat the prosciutto, you think you want some beer!”
Concluding my trip with dinner at Locanda alla Pace – which dates to 1804 and has been run by the same family since 1900 – seemed to sum up Sauris for me.
It is Michelin-listed, though you would not have guessed it by the laid-back and familiar atmosphere.
Franca Schneider, the family matriarch, is in her eighties. Along with her son Mauro, she services the tables while her husband Vinicio and daughter Elena work their culinary magic in the kitchen.
A meal most un-Italian yet authentically Saurean closed my trip, which included everything from the ham, the cheese and the beers, as well as other regional dishes equally special, including the homemade apple cake, of which I almost asked for second helpings.
Upon my departure after the meal, Elena leaned across the bar and handed me a folded serviette.
In it was her handwritten recipe for the apple cake, in Italian. “One last souvenir,” she winked.
Find out more
“Haus van der Zahre” – Ethnographic Centre
The House of Sauris, as it is affectionately called, is an excellent museum outlining the history and traditions of Sauris.
This is a good place to get to know the village’s ancient foundation as well as the many rituals and customs that still exist today.
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