Living in Spilimbergo: a small town with a hospital, schools and falling prices

Spilimbergo sits on the right bank of the Tagliamento river, 131 m above sea level, between Pordenone and Udine. It is the largest municipality in its area of the upper plain; its population is up 6% on 2001.

Its name travels thanks to the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, a mosaic school founded in 1922 that trains master mosaicists on a three-year course and keeps more than 800 works on show. Day to day, what matters is the rest: 8 supermarkets and 5 pharmacies mapped in the municipality, 3 upper secondary school sites.

• Good fit: anyone working in Pordenone or Udine, families with teenagers, buyers who put a hospital first.
• Poor fit: rail commuters, holiday-let investors (visitors spent only 27,200 nights here in 2025), home-workers until they have tested the connection at the address.

Airports: Venice 1 h 21, Trieste 1 h 08 (by car, no traffic).

Regional law lists Spilimbergo among the smaller ‘base’ hospitals (ospedali di base); it belongs to ASFO, the western Friuli health authority, and its emergency department never closes. Where a cardiac arrest or stroke is suspected, crews make for a hub with cath lab and stroke unit: Pordenone (36 min) or Udine (40 min). The air ambulance flies from Pasian di Prato, 23 km as the crow flies.

Across Friuli Venezia Giulia only 6 municipalities have an A&E this close to the town hall. Emergencies in Italy: dial 112. The wider picture: hospitals and A&E.

The Revenue Agency's property observatory (OMI) splits Spilimbergo into 3 zones, with flats between €600/m² and €1,150/m²; the town-wide figure is €940/m², detached and semi-detached houses €1,100/m². In round numbers, €200,000 buys about 215 m² of flat, before taxes and notary (what a budget buys).

The figure to watch: between the first halves of 2025 and 2026 the town-wide value (the median of its zones) moved by -6.0%, the sharpest cut anywhere in the region, where most values did not move at all. Against 2021 it is still up 18.2%, but that rise comes from one zone, around Via Cavour and Via Corridoni; the historic centre is roughly where it was. Sales of homes in 2025 numbered 138, a change of -7.0% year on year. OMI rent: €3.1/m² a month; paper yield before costs 4.0%.

How buying works for foreigners: buying a house in Italy.

• Broadband: fibre runs into the home for 42.1% of households; elsewhere it stops at the street cabinet and copper does the rest. Check the exact address (fibre by town).
• Getting about: no passenger trains stop in town; the nearest served station is Maniago, 22 min by car, but its trains only run to Sacile; for direct trains to Udine, Venice and Trieste, Casarsa is 23 min away. The motorway junction (Pordenone Dogana) is 32 min away.
• Earthquakes: seismic zone 2; in May 1976 shaking here reached 8 on the MCS scale, and 61% of residential buildings predate 1971. Ask for the structural paperwork (what to ask).
• The river: 32% of the land is in the high flood-hazard class, yet only 5.4% of buildings lie in medium-hazard areas.
• Sun: unobstructed at the town hall, but 250 m away it drops to 7 h 53 min in places: worth computing for a specific house.