The 7 best hidden hill towns you can reach by train in Marche

1. Genga

Best for a soak. The comune has thermal baths.

1 h 2 min from Ancona · homes €390 to €560 a m² in the center · 1,648 people

Why visit Genga

Genga sits at 322 meters on the Sentino river in the Apennine foothills of the Marche, seven kilometers downstream from Sassoferrato and twelve north of Fabriano. The commune is the ancestral seat of the della Genga, the noble family that gave the Catholic Church Pope Leo XII, born at the Castello della Genga in 1760.

The territory is best known for the Grotte di Frasassi, a thirteen-kilometer karst system whose entrance was found in 1971 and opened to visitors in 1974. The Abisso Ancona, a single chamber roughly 180 by 120 meters and nearly 200 tall, is large enough to hold the Milan cathedral.

Above the cave entrance, the Tempio del Valadier, an octagonal neoclassical chapel set into a cliff wall, was commissioned by Leo XII from Giuseppe Valadier in 1828. The Abbazia di San Vittore alle Chiuse, a Romanesque Benedictine church on a Greek-cross plan, stands at the gorge mouth and dates to before 1080.

What to see in Genga

• Grotte di Frasassi. Thirteen kilometers of karst passageways found in 1971 and opened in 1974, with the Abisso Ancona chamber 180 by 120 meters wide and 200 meters tall.
• Tempio del Valadier. Octagonal neoclassical chapel commissioned by Pope Leo XII from Giuseppe Valadier in 1828, built of travertine and set into the cliff above the gorge.
• Abbazia di San Vittore alle Chiuse. Romanesque Benedictine church on a Greek-cross plan with four columns, built of local limestone, attested before 1080 at the mouth of the Frasassi gorge.

How to get to Genga

It has its own railway station. Ancona is about 1 h 2 min away by road.

Everything we know about Genga

2. Serra San Quirico

Best for olive oil. It belongs to the national association of olive oil towns.

49 min from Ancona · homes €450 to €640 a m² in the center · 2,503 people

Why visit Serra San Quirico

Serra San Quirico sits at 409 meters on the left bank of the Esino river, at the foot of Monte Murano and the entrance to the Gola della Rossa, forty-five kilometers from Ancona. Etruscan, Picene and Roman remains have been found in the area; the Romans established a military garrison that grew into the original village.

The medieval town is built almost entirely in stone and rock, ringed by walls dating to around 1300. Above those walls run the Copertelle, covered passageways that line the outer circuit, the true visual signature of the borgo.

The Santa Lucia complex, the former monastery in the centro storico, houses the headquarters of the Parco Naturale Regionale della Gola della Rossa e di Frasassi, the 9,167-hectare regional park that runs from Serra south to the Frasassi caves. The Chiesa di Santa Lucia, baroque inside with marble decoration and gold-leaf stucco, sits next door.

The Festa del Centro Storico in late July fills the stone lanes with theatrical reenactments.

What to see in Serra San Quirico

• Le Copertelle. Covered passageways running above the medieval outer walls from around 1300, the true visual signature of the stone borgo.
• Chiesa di Santa Lucia. Baroque church in the centro storico, with marble decoration, gold-leaf stucco and a Pasqualino Rossi seventeenth-century altarpiece.
• Parco Naturale Gola della Rossa e di Frasassi. 9,167-hectare regional park with headquarters at the Santa Lucia complex in the centro storico, running south to the Frasassi caves.

How to get to Serra San Quirico

It has its own railway station. Ancona is about 49 min away by road.

Everything we know about Serra San Quirico

3. Montecosaro

Best for a long lunch. A food guide lists Due Cigni Ristorante here.

47 min from Ancona · homes €750 to €1,150 a m² in the center · 7,394 people

Why visit Montecosaro

Montecosaro sits at 267 meters on a hill above the lower Chienti valley, fifteen kilometers from Macerata and inland from the Adriatic at Civitanova. The first record of a monastery in the river plain dates to 936, when the abbot Ildebrando received the church of Santa Maria from Farfa.

The current Basilica di Santa Maria a Piè di Chienti was raised in 1125 by the Lombard abbot Agenolfo, on the left bank a few kilometers from the river mouth: a three-nave Romanesque church with a raised presbytery and a ring of apsidioles, holding among the strongest Cluniac architecture in central Italy. The hilltop borgo above grew from a medieval castle after 1200, walled in the fourteenth century inside an oval that culminates at the Cassero, the former fortress now a public garden.

The Augustinian convent and the church of Sant'Agostino in the upper town date from the same century, rebuilt in the late eighteenth.

What to see in Montecosaro

• Basilica di Santa Maria a Piè di Chienti. Romanesque church rebuilt in 1125 by the Lombard abbot Agenolfo on a Farfa monastic foundation of 936, three naves with raised presbytery and apsidioles.
• Centro storico. Oval-walled medieval centro storico on the hill, with fourteenth-century walls and concentric streets climbing toward the Cassero.
• Cassero. Highest point of the walled borgo, where the medieval fortress once stood, now a public garden with views over the Chienti valley.

How to get to Montecosaro

It has its own railway station. Ancona is about 47 min away by road.

Everything we know about Montecosaro

4. Matelica

Best for a wine weekend. It belongs to the national association of wine towns.

1 h 11 min from Ancona · homes €600 to €1,100 a m² in the center · 9,072 people

Why visit Matelica

Matelica sits at 354 meters in the upper Esino valley between Monte San Vicino at 1,479 meters to the west and Monte Gemmo at 719 meters to the east. The Picentes and Umbri settled here in the first millennium BC; Rome turned the town into a municipium around 70 BC under the name Matilica.

After the Lombard sack of 578 AD Matelica re-emerged as a free commune by 1160 under its bishop. Verdicchio di Matelica, DOC since 1967, is the smaller and higher-altitude of the two Verdicchio appellations: the closed mountain valley gives the wine a sharper mineral profile than the Castelli di Jesi version closer to the coast.

The Museo Civico Archeologico holds the Globo di Matelica, a thirty-centimeter Roman marble sphere from the second century AD, engraved with lines that may have been used for a sundial. Palazzo Ottoni, built in 1472 on the main piazza, and the Museo Piersanti, the collection of the eighteenth-century papal master of ceremonies, anchor the centro storico.

What to see in Matelica

• Museo Civico Archeologico. Civic archaeology collection holding the Globo di Matelica, a Roman marble sphere of the second century AD engraved with reference lines, possibly a sundial.
• Palazzo Ottoni. Renaissance palazzo built in 1472 by the Ottoni family on the main piazza, now part of the civic administration.
• Museo Piersanti. Late fifteenth-century palazzo holding the collection of Monsignor Venanzio Filippo Piersanti, papal master of ceremonies from 1718 to 1761, with works by Bellini, Salvator Rosa and Carlo Maratta.

How to get to Matelica

It has its own railway station. Ancona is about 1 h 11 min away by road.

Everything we know about Matelica

5. Morrovalle

Best for everyday life on foot. Nine of the ten everyday services we look for are mapped within 500 meters of the center.

51 min from Ancona · homes €650 to €1,000 a m² in the center · 9,792 people

Why visit Morrovalle

Morrovalle sits eleven kilometers east of Macerata, on a hill above the lower Chienti valley. The Roman municipality of Pausolae stood nearby, but the present town grew in the early Middle Ages from a ministerium de Valle dependent on the bishop of Fermo, with a castle called Mor-ro on the hilltop that gradually freed itself from episcopal control.

That castle is the origin of the walled centro storico that still occupies the hilltop today, its layout and signage now recognized as an orange flag town. Just outside those walls stands the former convent, founded around 1290 and now serving as an auditorium.

On the night between 16 and 17 April 1560 a fire destroyed its conventual church, and clearing the high altar on 27 April revealed a consecrated host and a silver pyx intact in a wall cavity, an event a pope authenticated by bull that September. Works recovered from the burned church were later moved to the parish church in the centro storico, tying the hilltop town to the convent below it.

Below both, the slopes descend toward the Chienti, where the same hills that gave the town its defensive position now carry the vineyards of the surrounding wine commune.

What to see in Morrovalle

• Ex Convento di San Francesco (Auditorium Borgo Marconi). Franciscan convent founded around 1290 just outside the walls, its conventual church the site of the fire that produced the Eucharistic Miracle. The building now serves as the municipal auditorium.
• Centro storico. Walled medieval hilltop layout with the signage and visitor route that earned the Bandiera Arancione recognition.
• Palazzo Lazzarini. Noble palace on Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, with a brick facade and a portal that frames the civic center of the medieval borgo.

How to get to Morrovalle

It has its own railway station. Ancona is about 51 min away by road.

Everything we know about Morrovalle

6. San Severino Marche

Best for a slow weekend. The Touring Club gives it its orange flag for small inland towns.

1 h 11 min from Ancona · homes €800 to €1,350 a m² in the center · 11,787 people

Why visit San Severino Marche

San Severino Marche sits at 235 meters in the Potenza valley, fifty kilometers southwest of Ancona, and the town is built in two distinct pieces rather than one continuous fabric. The medieval Castello occupies the hill above the town, still ringed by surviving city walls, while the Borgo below grew up around its own civic center on the valley floor.

The two parts do different jobs: the hill was governed and defended, walled and towered under the Smeducci dynasty through the fourteenth century, while the valley floor was built for markets and public life, organized around the wide colonnaded ellipse that still serves as the town's gathering space. The Salimbeni brothers, Lorenzo and Jacopo, were born in the town and worked across both halves of it, painting in a hilltop church and in a crypt-church alike, and their frescoes, along with a Vittore Crivelli polyptych, have since been gathered into a civic gallery in the lower town.

That movement of paintings from hill to valley mirrors the town's own shift in weight over time, from a fortified seat of government above to a civic and commercial center below, with the art now sitting closer to the square than to the walls that first sheltered it.

What to see in San Severino Marche

• Piazza del Popolo. The elliptical square anchors the lower town, its porticoes running unbroken around the full curve, giving the Borgo a single continuous gathering space rather than a scattering of smaller squares.
• Duomo Vecchio. The bell tower and the raised setting on Monte Nero are what register first, the cathedral standing above the walls rather than among them. Inside, the chapel that once held the Salimbeni Saint John cycle is now empty, the frescoes moved elsewhere in town.
• Torre degli Smeducci. The tower is the only structure on the hill that reads as purely defensive, plain where the church nearby is decorated, and it still dominates the skyline of the upper town.

How to get to San Severino Marche

It has its own railway station. Ancona is about 1 h 11 min away by road.

Everything we know about San Severino Marche

7. Monteprandone

Best for a walk through the old town. It is on the list of Italy's most beautiful villages.

58 min from Pescara · homes €750 to €1,100 a m² in the center · 13,067 people

Why visit Monteprandone

Monteprandone sits at 266 meters on a hill above the left bank of the lower Tronto valley, twenty kilometers northeast of Ascoli Piceno and five from the Adriatic at San Benedetto. Tradition traces the founding to the ninth century and a knight from Charlemagne's court named Prandone, who built the first castle.

A papal bull of 13 May 1323 granted the village in perpetual fief to Ascoli Piceno. The walled center still shows this layered history: gates and stepped streets rise from the valley floor toward the summit, where the parish church stands over the plain and the sea beyond it.

The convent that anchors the town's fame sits within reach of that same climb, and the manuscripts once written for its friars now rest in a museum built to hold them. Upper and lower, castle-born and papally governed, the town's shape still traces the fief it became in 1323 and the hill it was built to defend.

What to see in Monteprandone

• Santuario di Santa Maria delle Grazie e San Giacomo della Marca. The convent stands where its founder placed it, the body brought back in 2001 kept within walls that also hold paintings by Vincenzo Pagani and Cola dell'Amatrice.
• Museo Civico dei Codici di San Giacomo della Marca. The volumes are shelved together in the civic museum, pages once meant for the friars and scholars of the convent now under glass for anyone to see.
• Centro storico di Monteprandone. Walled hill village above the Tronto valley, with surviving gates and stepped streets that climb to the church of San Nicolò di Bari at the summit.

How to get to Monteprandone

It has its own railway station. Pescara is about 58 min away by road.

Everything we know about Monteprandone