Viaso · Carnia · Friuli Venezia Giulia
Top Hill Cottage
A new house of stone and glass on top of a knoll above the Tagliamento valley. Rented whole, to one group only.
The hill, the woods, the valley at your feet.
Top Hill Cottage stands on the edge of Viaso, a village of meadows and red roofs at 525 metres in Carnia: the mountains of Friuli, where the Tagliamento leaves the valleys and spreads into a bed of white gravel.
Around the house lie twelve thousand square metres of meadow and trees. Inside, stone, wood and large windows facing the mountains. It is let as a whole: whoever arrives has the entire house, and nobody else.
- guests at most
- 12
- guests at most
- of house
- 700 m²
- of house
- of grounds
- 12,000 m²
- of grounds
- above sea level
- 525 m
- above sea level
From the village to the house, in flight.
Viaso: meadows, gardens and red roofs above the valley.
The woods climb up to the knoll.
At the top, the house: stone, wood and glass.
Real drone footage, summer 2022. No changes made with artificial intelligence.
The house
One large room to be together, and a bedroom for everyone.
On the ground floor the kitchen with its island, the table for twelve and the living room share one open space, with the wood stove at one end and the fireplace at the other. A floating staircase leads to the bedrooms under the beams, each with its own bathroom.
Then a second living room facing the glass wall, a gym and a steam bath; outside the porch, the lawn and, in summer, an above-ground pool.
Inside
The rooms, slowly.
The entrance, the dining room, the kitchen with its stove, the living room with the fireplace, the staircase by the glass wall, the bedroom under the beams.
AI · simulated
AI · editedThe light
A day up there.
- By day the meadow, the woods and the valley.
- At sunset the stone warms up.
- In the evening the house lights up.
Day and evening are real photographs. The sunset is a simulation created with AI from the daytime photo.
Who it is for
Three ways to stay at Top Hill.
- 01
The mountains, slowly
The Friulian Dolomites, Lake Sauris and Monte Zoncolan are less than forty minutes' drive away. You come back to a warm house, the fire lit and a table for everyone.
- 02
Retreats and work meetings
A whole house for one team: the table for twelve to work at, a bedroom each to sleep in, a gym to switch off. A chef in the house and outings with a guide can be arranged on request; two kilometres away, in Socchieve, there is a municipal coworking space with a meeting room.
- 03
Families and friends
The garden is fenced, a cot is free on request, the board games are already there. And in the evening there is room for everyone around the same table.
More than the keys
Behind the house there is someone who knows it.
On arrival the person who runs the house welcomes you in person and shows you around, room by room. During your stay they remain within reach, with tips on what to see and where to eat.
And on request they arrange what you need. These are the services the house declares: costs and terms are agreed with the quote.
- Airport transfer with a driver
- Groceries in the house on arrival
- A private chef for dinners
- Hikes with a mountain guide
- E-bike tours
- Massages, personal trainer, yoga
- An anniversary or a surprise to prepare
Services declared by the house in its listings. Availability and prices are confirmed with the quote.
Where it is
In Carnia, where Friuli turns into mountains.
Viaso is a hamlet of Socchieve, one of the municipalities of Carnia, the mountain land of upper Friuli. From the house Tolmezzo is about twenty minutes away, Udine an hour, Trieste airport less than an hour and a half.
- 19 minLake Sauris
- 22 minTolmezzo
- 29 minForni di Sopra
- 32 minZoncolan
- 54 minSappada
- 60 minUdine
- 81 minTrieste airport
- 86 minVillach (Austria)
- 93 minCortina d'Ampezzo
- 105 minTrieste
- 106 minLignano (sea)
- 126 minVenice airport
What to do
A valley for every season.
Lakes, mountain pastures, wooden villages, trails and slopes: choose the season and set aside what catches your eye. The ideas you add travel with your request for a quote.
The valley's old churches
5 minSan Martino in Socchieve, a national monument, with Gianfrancesco da Tolmezzo's frescoes dated 1493; the Pieve di Castoia on its hill; San Biagio in Mediis.
Preone, 200 million years
7 minAmong the Triassic fossils found here is one of the oldest known flying reptiles. The exhibition is free, and the Stavoli Lunas trail makes a 4 km loop.
The Friulian Dolomites
31 minThe Friulian Dolomites nature park can only be crossed on foot. From Forni di Sopra, the visitor centre and, in summer, the Varmost chairlifts up to the mountain pastures.
Val di Suola and its ibexes
29 minTrail CAI 362 climbs to the Flaiban-Pacherini hut in an hour and a half; higher up, at the Suola pass, seeing ibexes is normal.
Sauris and its lake
19 minA lake at 977 metres with SUP, canoeing and a bike loop; above it, the German-speaking hamlets of Sauris, a «Best Tourism Village» 2023 for the UN World Tourism Organization.
Ham, cheese and mountain pastures
24 minIn Sauris the beech-smoked PGI ham and the village beer; the ham festival in July, the mountain-cheese festival in August; around Monte Pieltinis, the ring of mountain pastures.
Music in the old churches
5 minEvery summer the Carniarmonie festival brings concerts to the churches and villages of Carnia, including Mediis and the Pieve di Castoia.
Monte Zoncolan by bike
32 minThe Giro d'Italia climb from Sutrio: 13.7 km on an open road, the last three at 14% with ramps of 25%.
Illegio, the exhibition of the year
34 minA mountain village that since 2004 has brought more than 1,600 works of art to Carnia: every year, from June to November, a major exhibition in the Casa delle Esposizioni.
Pesariis, the village of clocks
34 minClocks have been made here since the 17th century: twelve monumental clocks to see in the open, at any hour, and the clock-making museum.
At the table in Carnia
12 minFrico, cjarsons, smoked ricotta and mountain cheeses. In Raveo, Indiniò is in the MICHELIN Guide selection.
Dates and quote
When are you coming?
Pick your dates among the free ones and tell us how many you are and what you would like to find. We reply with the confirmation and a quote: there is no need to go through other websites.
Quote on request
Good to know
- Rented whole, to one group at a time. Minimum stay three nights.
- Check-in 3 pm to 9 pm, check-out by 10 am.
- Children welcome, cot free on request.
- No pets, no smoking in the house, no parties.
CIN (Italian national identification code): IT030110C2XOSUL9R6Viaso · Socchieve (UD)
Page published free of charge by TriesteVillas srl (VAT IT01235580329) under the FriuliVillas brand. TriesteVillas is neither the landlord nor the manager of the house and takes no payments. Availability, price and terms are confirmed by the owner or the manager, with whom any contract is made. The free dates shown are indicative.
A few kilometres away
Chalet Navauce
The person who keeps Top Hill running also has a house of his own: a wood-and-stone chalet in a meadow among the woods, for those travelling in few.
Discover Chalet Navauce →How we used AI in these photos
9 photos changed with AI, marked on the photo (1 is a simulation). Another 14 in light and colour only. The viewing remains the only reference.
How we edited them
The photos, by type of edit
- 14Light and colour only, nothing removed or added: that is why the photo carries no label. A generative model does redraw the photo, though, and can get the finest details wrong.
- 8AI · editedWe removed what is movable or temporary (belongings, people, cars, building materials), or tidied up a bed or a parched lawn.
- 1AI · simulatedIt shows what isn't in the home, or isn't like that: virtual furniture, plants, a changed sky, a shot widened or recomposed, an unfinished home shown finished.
23 photos have the original to compare: open one and press “See the original”.
The photographs of this house are drone shots taken on 2 July 2022 and camera shots taken on 17 February 2025 (interiors at dusk with the lights on, exteriors in the evening). 23 of the 31 published photographs went through a generative image model (Google's Nano Banana family, used via the Higgsfield platform). In the 17 interior photographs the model was used for the light: it produced a brighter version of each shot, from which we took only the distribution of light, while objects, materials, fabrics and the views from the windows are the pixels of the original photograph; the views were only slightly brightened and keep the dusk exposure at which they were taken. In 8 photographs small extraneous items were removed: the power cables of the lamps (three photos), a camera bag left on the floor behind the glass (three evening photos) and pallets of paving blocks standing in the yard (two drone shots from 2022). Deliberately left in place: the furniture and styling (laid tables, baskets, vases, cushions, throws, lamps switched on, the fire in the stove), the parked cars (under the carport and, in one aerial shot, a pick-up on the meadow), the small materials in the yard seen from above, a plug with part of its cable in two photos and a small black object on the chest in the evening photos. Where an item was removed, the part of floor, furniture or yard it was hiding was not photographed: the model reconstructed it plausibly, and only in that area. Nothing else was changed: dimensions, openings, floors, beams, staircase, windows and doors, installations (photovoltaic panels, solar water heater, roof windows, chimney) and finishes are as photographed; we found no visible defects and no surface was cleaned or repaired. The number plates of the cars were made illegible, without artificial intelligence. One aerial photograph is also published in a second version, declared as a simulation: the same photo with warm light and an evening sky recreated with artificial intelligence; house, garden, trees and mountains remain the pixels of the original photograph and the shadows are those of the afternoon when it was taken. The other 8 photographs (seven drone shots and one evening photo) were corrected only for light, colour and noise, without artificial intelligence. The original, unmodified photographs can be seen by opening a photo and pressing “See the original”; a visit remains the only reliable reference for the actual condition of the property.
Video
- AI-simulated sunsetSimulation: on a real photo of the house, the evening light and sky are recreated with AI; the shadows remain those of the afternoon. Animated partly with AI and partly with a digital zoom. The dining room is a real photo brightened with AI.
- AI-animated videoReal night photos of the house, animated with AI with a slow push-in; in three, a bag left behind the glass was removed with AI. The lights on are those in the photos.