The 8 best towns you can reach by train that eat well within 90 minutes of Ancona
The Marche eat well in a way that rarely leaves the region. Along the Adriatic it is brodetto, thickened with vinegar and saffron, mazzancolle from the boats at first light, and Verdicchio poured cold in places with paper on the tables. Inland, where the hills climb in brick and travertine towards the Sibillini, the register shifts to vincisgrassi, ciauscolo soft enough to spread, and pork cooked slowly through the damp autumn months. The railway follows both, the coastal line running straight past the beaches and the branch lines cutting west up the river valleys towards Macerata and beyond.
Most people arriving at Ancona are heading somewhere else, usually the port and the ferry to Croatia, or the Conero riviera just south, where Sirolo and Numana fill through July and August and the cliff beaches are reached by shuttle bus and a queue. Urbino draws the other half, and deservedly, though the coach parks below the Palazzo Ducale tell you how the day will go. Both are worth the trip. Neither is somewhere you can arrive by train in the evening and find a table without a plan.
The same coast and the same hills keep going, and the trains keep stopping. North of the Conero the sand runs long and flat towards Senigallia and Mondolfo; south of it the line threads Porto San Giorgio and the Fermano. Inland the valleys of the Potenza and the Chienti carry stations up towards San Severino Marche, Montecosaro and Morrovalle, hill towns of warm brick with kitchens that a dining guide has thought worth naming. These are the smaller places on those lines, where fewer people get off.
Of the 35 communes we have mapped in within 90 minutes of Ancona, 8 qualify as towns you can reach by train that eat well: we have confirmed each is reachable without a car, and a dining guide has named a table in each. The smallest, Montecosaro, has 7,369 residents.
Elsewhere in the catalogue: The best hidden towns you can reach by train that eat well in Marche and The best towns with a serious restaurant that eat well within 90 minutes of Ancona.
Montecosaro
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.
Due Cigni Ristorante have been named by a guide.
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
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Ancona is roughly 46 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the best months for Montecosaro. The Chienti valley turns green in spring and gold through the autumn harvest weeks, with mild afternoons on the hilltop and long views from the Cassero across to the Sibillini. July and August touch the low thirties; the hill catches more breeze than the river plain below, and the Basilica di Santa Maria stays cool through the day. Contesa dei Cento Ducati falls in August.
Morrovalle
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.
Agriturismo Ponterosa have been named by a guide.
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 centre of the medieval borgo.
How to get to Morrovalle
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Ancona is roughly 50 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the best months for Morrovalle. The Chienti valley turns green by late April and gold through August, the hilltop catches Adriatic breezes from the coast eighteen kilometers east, and the Sibillini stay visible on clear afternoons. July and August touch the low thirties, with the centro storico quietest between three and seven. Calici di Stelle falls in August.
San Severino Marche
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.
Cavallini have been named by a guide.
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
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Ancona is roughly 71 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the working months for San Severino Marche. The Potenza valley turns green from April, the climb to the Duomo Vecchio holds its best light through the autumn afternoons, and the Palio dei Castelli on the second Sunday of June fills both city centers with neighborhood processions. July and August touch the low thirties; the elliptical Piazza del Popolo offers shaded porticoes through the hottest hours and the lower city empties between four and seven.
Loreto
Why visit Loreto
Loreto sits at 127 meters on the right bank of the Musone, twenty-two kilometers southeast of Ancona and four from the Adriatic. According to tradition, on the night between 9 and 10 December 1294 angels carried the Holy House of the Virgin from Nazareth to a laurel grove on this hill, after a brief stop in Illyria following the Crusader expulsion of 1291.
Historical sources note that the Angeli were a Despot family of Epirus who organized the translation by sea. The three stone walls of the Santa Casa, 9.5 by 4 meters, stand at the heart of the Basilica della Santa Casa, built between 1469 and 1587 over and around them.
Bramante designed the marble revetment that wraps the house; Sansovino, Sangallo and Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane all worked on the building. Around four million pilgrims arrive each year, making Loreto one of the principal Marian sanctuaries in Catholic Europe and the source of the Litany of Loreto.
Andreina, GastroBi have been named by a guide.
What to see in Loreto
- Basilica della Santa Casa. Built between 1469 and 1587 around the three walls of the Holy House from Nazareth, with contributions from Bramante, Sansovino and the Sangallo family.
- Santa Casa. The 9.5 by 4 meter stone house of Mary at the heart of the basilica, wrapped in Bramante's marble revetment, focus of pilgrimage since 1294.
- Piazza della Madonna. The main square in front of the basilica, enclosed by the Palazzo Apostolico of Bramante and Sansovino, holds the Fontana Maggiore of Carlo Maderno.
How to get to Loreto
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Ancona is roughly 28 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the main pilgrim season at Loreto. The basilica is open every day, the train link from Ancona runs hourly, and the Adriatic four kilometers below stays cool enough for an afternoon trip. Two dates anchor the year: 25 March, the Annunciation, draws a major liturgy in the basilica, and 10 December, the anniversary of the translation, brings night-time fires across the surrounding hills under the name Venuta.
Mondolfo
Why visit Mondolfo
Mondolfo sits at 144 meters on a ridge above the Adriatic between Pesaro and Senigallia, with the coastal frazione on the beach four kilometers below. A Byzantine castle stood here in the sixth and seventh centuries, and the present settlement formed around it in the early eleventh, when the Montoffo feudal family gave the town its name.
The Malatesta took the castle in the fourteenth century, then Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta lost it to Pope Pius II in 1463, at which point the walls and bastion that still anchor the southwest corner were rebuilt. The friary and church at the heart of the old town were rebuilt twice, first by Antonio di Pietro da Vercelli in 1466 and again under Domenico da Como in 1593.
Mondolfo joined the Borghi più belli d'Italia and holds recognitions for both its coast and its farmland. The town is a single history in two elevations: the ridge held the castle and later the fortified center, while the shore below, reached across the four kilometers of farmland now recognized for its management, grew into the seafront community that carries the coastal recognitions today.
What began as a Byzantine strongpoint and passed through Malatesta and papal hands still reads as a hill town looking down at its own beach.
Burro & Alici have been named by a guide.
What to see in Mondolfo
- Mura Roveresche. Roughly 600 meters of fifteenth-century walls and the south-west bastion, redesigned by the Della Rovere for early artillery defense after 1463.
- Complesso Monumentale di Sant'Agostino. Augustinian friary and church from the late thirteenth century, rebuilt in 1466 and again in 1593, now home to the civic museum and the Sant'Agostino complex.
- Centro storico. Walled hill borgo with narrow streets, the Palazzo del Comune and the Chiesa di Santa Giustina at the heart of the perimeter.
How to get to Mondolfo
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Ancona is roughly 44 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the main window for Mondolfo. The Marotta seafront opens from late spring, the Bandiera Blu lido water clears from June, and the hill borgo above stays a few degrees cooler than the beach. July and August fill the lungomare with the worst of the coast traffic; the walled borgo above keeps quieter. Festa del Mare falls in August.
Porto San Giorgio
Why visit Porto San Giorgio
The town sits on the central Adriatic between Ancona and Pescara, the working port and the holiday beach of the Fermo valley. The lower town by the water was settled as the harbour of the older inland Fermo, taken over by Venetian merchants in the 13th century, and the castle that still stands above the harbour dates from that takeover.
The historic centre sits slightly back from the sea, holding the 1818 civic theatre and a small but lively summer calendar of seafood festivals, while the seafront itself runs a different register: marina, beach, and the Liberty-era promenade under date palms and umbrella pines, laid out parallel to the sand behind the row of bathing stations. What the layout adds up to is a town divided cleanly by function rather than by age: an inland-facing historic core that keeps the theatre and the festival calendar, and a shoreline built in layers from the 13th-century defensive castle down through the Liberty-era promenade to the modern marina and beach, each addition sitting seaward of the last.
Retroscena, Trattoria Marmetta, Opera Bao Ramen Bar and 1 more have been named by a guide.
What to see in Porto San Giorgio
- Rocca Tiepolo. Brick castle with a squat profile and surviving towers, built by Lorenzo Tiepolo to defend the port. It stands as the historic anchor of the seafront, the oldest fixed point on a shoreline otherwise given over to modern bathing establishments.
- Spiaggia (Bandiera Blu). The Bandiera Blu beach runs two kilometres of fine sand on a gentle shelf, lined with classic Adriatic stabilimenti balneari. One of the central Adriatic's reliable family beaches.
- Porto turistico. The marina holds moorings alongside a working fishing fleet that still lands its catch at dawn, so pleasure craft and working boats share the same water.
How to get to Porto San Giorgio
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Ancona is roughly 48 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through October is the season on the central Adriatic. May and September are the best months: warm sea, the beach stabilimenti running but not at capacity, and the seafront promenade comfortable in the afternoon light. July and August are full — Porto San Giorgio is a popular regional beach destination, the marina at capacity, the fishing-festival calendar at full output.
Macerata
Why visit Macerata
Macerata sits at 315 meters on a hilltop between the Chienti and Potenza valleys, thirty-five kilometers south of Ancona. The Roman Helvia Recina stood on the plain below; after the city was destroyed by the Goths the survivors moved up to the present site, where the town grew into the provincial capital.
The University, founded in 1290, is one of the oldest in continuous operation in Europe. The Sferisterio, the city's signature monument, is a 100-meter neoclassical arena designed by Ireneo Aleandri in 1823, originally built for pallone col bracciale, the bracelet-ball game once played across central Italy.
From 1921, when Verdi's Aida was first staged there, it became one of Italy's principal open-air opera venues. The Macerata Opera Festival runs through July and August.
The provincial museum holds works by Carlo Crivelli, Lorenzo Lotto and Antonio Canova. The 2016 earthquakes damaged outlying frazioni but the centro storico held.
Signore te ne ringrazi have been named by a guide.
What to see in Macerata
- Sferisterio. Neoclassical 100-meter open-air arena designed by Ireneo Aleandri in 1823, originally built for pallone col bracciale, now seat of the Macerata Opera Festival since 1921.
- Università di Macerata. Founded in 1290, one of the oldest continuously operating universities in Europe, with its main rectorate on Piazza della Libertà.
- Piazza della Libertà. Main square of the centro storico, holds the Loggia dei Mercanti, the Palazzo del Comune and the Torre dei Tempi with its astronomical clock.
How to get to Macerata
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Ancona is roughly 58 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September into October are the best months for Macerata. The Chienti and Potenza valleys hold green from April, the centro storico runs cool in the morning and the surrounding hills toward Montelupone and Treia are open for walking. July and August anchor the Macerata Opera Festival at the Sferisterio, with three major productions across roughly six weeks; nights stay warm but the open arena keeps moving air. Rievocazione storica della Trebbiatura - Degustazione dell'oca falls in June.
Senigallia
Why visit Senigallia
Senigallia sits at the mouth of the Misa river on the Adriatic, twenty-five kilometers north of Ancona. The centro storico gathers along the river's right bank, where the arcades face the water, while the fortress stands apart as the town's layered military record, built up over two centuries by successive rulers rather than in one campaign.
The beach runs south from this old core as a separate register of the town entirely, thirteen kilometers of it, with the pier pavilion marking the center of that beachfront and the restaurant anchoring its southern end. The photographer worked in the town all his life, and the permanent section of his prints sits inland in the Palazzo del Duca rather than anywhere near the coast he might have photographed.
The market arcade, built in the nineteenth century, still does the ordinary work of feeding the town between the historic river frontage and the modern beach economy. Senigallia reads, then, as three towns joined at the river mouth: a fortified old center, a nineteenth-century civic one, and a twentieth-century coastline, each still doing the job it was built for.
Uliassi, Madonnina del Pescatore, Cuoco di Bordo and 4 more have been named by a guide.
What to see in Senigallia
- Spiaggia di Velluto. The Bandiera Blu beach, working spine of the town's summer, its sand fine enough underfoot to explain the name.
- Rocca Roveresca. Layered fortress combining Albornoz's fourteenth-century Rocchetta, the 1450 Malatesta keep and the Della Rovere completion by Laurana and Pontelli.
- Rotonda a Mare. Art-deco pier pavilion completed 1933, set on iron piles above the water at the center of the beachfront, restored and used for exhibitions and weddings.
How to get to Senigallia
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Ancona is roughly 41 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through September is the Senigallia window: the beach bagni open from late May, the Caterraduno radio festival fills late June, the Summer Jamboree rockabilly week runs through early August, and the September sea stays warm through the start of school. July and August touch the high twenties with humid Adriatic evenings; the Velvet Beach and the Rotonda a Mare passeggiata pull the largest crowds of the year. April, May and October are quieter, cooler months for the Rocca Roveresca tours and the Giacomelli rooms at Palazzo del Duca. Festa Castellana falls in August.
More from Anywhere Italy
The best hidden towns you can reach by train that eat well in Marche
The best towns with a serious restaurant that eat well within 90 minutes of Ancona
The 10 best hill towns that eat well within 90 minutes of Ancona
The best hill towns you can reach by train within 90 minutes of Ancona- The best towns that eat well in the province of Macerata
- The best coastal towns within 90 minutes of Ancona