The 9 best wine towns within two hours of Ancona

1. Offagna

Best for a day out from Ancona. It is 25 min by car.

25 min from Ancona · homes €900 to €1,350 a m² in the center · 2,120 people

Why visit Offagna

Offagna sits at 309 meters on a sandstone outcrop between Ancona and Osimo, ten kilometers from the Adriatic. The Rocca was built by the city of Ancona between 1454 and 1456 as a fortified outpost to defend its inland frontier, raised in just two years on the ruins of an earlier castle and well preserved through the centuries.

Tall walls, four square towers and a slender keep make it one of the cleanest examples of mid-fifteenth-century military architecture in central Italy. Inside, the Museo della Rocca holds medieval and renaissance arms and a collection of crossbows.

The walled village around it received both the Borghi più Belli recognition and the Touring Club Bandiera Arancione in May 2013. The Feste Medievali in the last week of July fill the centro storico with neighborhood Quarters competing in archery and crossbow, fairs and processions through the Maniero square.

The Conero is visible from the towers.

What to see in Offagna

• Rocca di Offagna. Mid-fifteenth-century fortress built by Ancona 1454-1456 in just two years, with four square towers, a slender keep and one of the best-preserved military profiles in the Marche.
• Museo della Rocca. Inside the fortress, holding medieval and renaissance arms, crossbows and military objects from the Anconitan territorial defense.
• Centro storico. Walled medieval village around the Rocca, with stepped streets, the Maniero square at the center, and both Borghi più belli and Bandiera Arancione recognition from 2013.

How to get to Offagna

Ancona is about 25 min away by road.

Everything we know about Offagna

2. Numana

Best for a swim. The comune's beach holds a Blue Flag.

30 min from Ancona · homes €1,850 to €2,650 a m² in the center · 3,762 people

Why visit Numana

Numana sits fifteen kilometers south of Ancona, on a cliff overlooking the Adriatic at the foot of the promontory that shapes this stretch of coast. The old town, Numana alta, runs along the ridge in continuity with Sirolo, while Numana bassa wraps around the port below, so the visitor moves between two settlements joined by a single slope rather than one town with two names.

The place was a Picene harbor that traded with Greek and Etruscan ships from the sixth century BC, and a major center of pre-Roman Italy before the rise of Ancona pushed it into decline around 500 BC. That decline is what left the burial grounds undisturbed long enough to be excavated centuries later, and it is also why the town's oldest identity is archaeological rather than architectural: a harbor that mattered, stopped mattering, and was rediscovered through what it buried.

In Riva a Numana (MICHELIN and L'Espresso), Casa Rapisarda (MICHELIN and Gambero Rosso), Riva Restaurant del View Place Hotel (Gambero Rosso) and 1 more place are listed in food guides.

What to see in Numana

• Antiquarium Statale di Numana. Opened 1974, holding more than five hundred Picene burials from the Conero necropolises, plus a sixth-century BC limestone warrior's head found on a Numana beach in 1892.
• Santuario del Crocifisso. Rebuilt in 1969 on a 1566 foundation, the current structure standing on a sanctuary site with roots three centuries older than the rebuild itself.
• Porto di Numana. Working fishing and pleasure port at the foot of the cliff, with daily boat services along the Conero cliffs to the otherwise inaccessible Due Sorelle beach.

How to get to Numana

Ancona is about 30 min away by road.

Everything we know about Numana

3. Sirolo

Best for a long lunch. Food guides list two tables here.

31 min from Ancona · homes €1,600 to €2,300 a m² in the center · 4,060 people

Why visit Sirolo

Sirolo sits at 125 meters, twenty kilometers from Ancona, on ground that belonged to the Conti Cortesi family. The medieval village kept one of the two original castle towers, folded now into the parish church, and the belvedere above Piazza Vittorio Veneto looks out across the bay.

Below town, the ridge drops toward the Picene necropolis of I Pini, and further down still toward the water. The mountain above the village and the water below it are the same geology: limestone that falls straight into the sea rather than tapering through a coastal plain, which is why the village sits on a clifftop rather than a shoreline.

Upper Sirolo is the castle, the church and the theater, all cut from the same pale stone. Lower Sirolo is reached by trail to the beaches under the cliff, and by boat to the cove where the sea stacks stand.

The grave goods from the necropolis have left town entirely, kept at the Antiquarium in neighbouring Numana, so what remains above ground here is the tomb site itself rather than its contents. The town doubles in summer and empties again in October: a place shaped less by what happens in it than by the drop between its two levels, the built one and the wild one.

Lofficina (MICHELIN) and Convivio (Gambero Rosso) are listed in food guides.

What to see in Sirolo

• Centro storico. Medieval village on the clifftop with the Arco Gotico from around the year 1000, the Piazzetta and a belvedere looking out across the Adriatic.
• Chiesa di San Nicolò di Bari. Eighteenth-century parish church built over a thirteenth-century structure, incorporating one of the two surviving towers of the medieval Sirolo castle.
• Teatro Cortesi. Municipal theater built in 1873 in white Conero stone, restored from 1980 and reopened in 1989.

How to get to Sirolo

Ancona is about 31 min away by road.

Everything we know about Sirolo

4. Torgiano

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

1 h 59 min from Ancona · homes €580 to €860 a m² in the center · 6,585 people

Written about. No. 89. Read the letter →

Why visit Torgiano

Torgiano sits at 219 meters at the point where the Chiascio joins the Tiber, ten kilometers south of Perugia. The Torre della Guardia, also called Torre Baglioni, was raised in 1274 to control the river customs traffic that moved up toward Rome from the Tiber valley.

Torgiano was the first Umbrian wine area to receive the DOC mark in 1968 and to be elevated to DOCG in 1990. Giorgio and Maria Grazia Lungarotti turned the wine economy of the town into a cultural project: the MUVIT, opened in 1974 inside the seventeenth-century Palazzo Graziani-Baglioni, holds three thousand pieces across twenty rooms documenting five thousand years of wine history.

The companion MOO, on the olive and oil, is inside a small medieval cluster within the castle walls. Both are managed by the Lungarotti Foundation.

The cantina itself, on the edge of the centro storico, has been the largest single Umbrian producer for half a century.

Elementi Fine Dining - Hotel Borgo Brufa (L'Espresso and Gambero Rosso) and Olimpia Ristorante (Gambero Rosso) are listed in food guides.

The catch: It is the longest drive on this list: 1 h 59 min from Ancona.

What to see in Torgiano

• MUVIT Museo del Vino. Wine museum opened 1974 in 17th-century Palazzo Graziani-Baglioni, with 3,000 pieces across 20 rooms covering 5,000 years of wine history.
• MOO Museo dell'Olivo e dell'Olio. Olive and oil museum in a medieval cluster within the castle walls, managed alongside MUVIT by the Lungarotti Foundation.
• Torre della Guardia (Torre Baglioni). Defensive tower raised 1274 to control the Tiber-Chiascio customs traffic, the only standing element of the original river fortifications.

How to get to Torgiano

Ancona is about 1 h 59 min away by road.

Everything we know about Torgiano

5. Bevagna

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

1 h 59 min from Ancona · homes €640 to €960 a m² in the center · 4,747 people

Why visit Bevagna

Bevagna sits on the floor of the Umbrian valley at 225 meters, where the Clitunno meets the Timia. Ancient Mevania, the name means she who stands in the middle, was a Roman mansio on the Via Flaminia, listed in the Antonine Itinerary.

A black-and-white mosaic of the 2nd century AD survives almost intact in the frigidarium of the Roman baths, twelve meters by seven, octopuses and dolphins in the center, tritons and sea-horses on the short sides. Piazza Silvestri at the heart of the centro storico holds two Romanesque churches that face each other at odd angles, San Michele Arcangelo and San Silvestro, built within years of each other in the late 12th century.

The Mercato delle Gaite each June turns the town into the year 1300 for ten days, four quarters competing on medieval trades and tavern menus, no anachronisms allowed. The Sagrantino slopes of Montefalco are nine kilometers up the road.

Serpillo (MICHELIN) and Ottavi Mare (MICHELIN and L'Espresso) are listed in food guides.

What to see in Bevagna

• Piazza Silvestri. Twelfth-century civic square ringed by the Palazzo dei Consoli, the churches of San Silvestro and San Michele, and the fountain of 1896.
• Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo. Romanesque collegiate church built by Binello and Rodolfo at the end of the 12th century, on the main square.
• Chiesa di San Silvestro. Romanesque parish church across the piazza, signed and dated 1195 by Binello, the same builder as San Michele.

How to get to Bevagna

Ancona is about 1 h 59 min away by road.

Everything we know about Bevagna

6. Longiano

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

1 h 37 min from Ancona · homes €1,400 to €1,650 a m² in the center · 7,247 people

Why visit Longiano

Longiano sits at 179 meters on the first hill line between Cesena and Rimini, about fifteen kilometers inland from the beaches of Cesenatico and within sight of the Adriatic. The town shifted from the plain to the hill in the seventh and eighth centuries, when the local population moved up to escape Lombard raids, and the settlement that resulted is the hilltop borgo still walled today, with the castle at its center and the theater just below it.

Longiano passed back to the Church in 1581 and stayed under papal rule until 1859; the castle then became the town hall, a role it kept until 1989. The sanctuary stands apart from this hilltop cluster, built around its painted crucifix and held by Franciscan presence for over seven centuries, a separate thread of the town's history running alongside the Malatesta line and the civic one.

What ties the parts together is the hill itself: a defensive move made in the seventh and eighth centuries left Longiano with a compact center where a former ruling family's fortress, a nineteenth-century theater and a walled medieval borgo all sit within reach of each other, while the sanctuary's much older devotional history runs on its own separate track nearby.

Magnolia (MICHELIN and L'Espresso), Dei Cantoni (MICHELIN) and Terre Alte (MICHELIN and L'Espresso) are listed in food guides.

What to see in Longiano

• Castello Malatestiano. Fortified hilltop seat of the Malatesta of Rimini, later passing to the Church and then the commune. Its rooms now hold the Fondazione Tito Balestra, so the walls that once housed a ruling family now hold paintings, drawings and sculpture.
• Teatro Petrella. Sits just below the castle. Restored in 1986, it is known today for its acoustics inside the horseshoe-shaped hall.
• Santuario del Santissimo Crocifisso. Franciscan sanctuary built around a thirteenth-century crucifix painted on canvas laid on wood, with Franciscan friars in Longiano since 1277.

How to get to Longiano

Ancona is about 1 h 37 min away by road.

Everything we know about Longiano

7. Bertinoro

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

1 h 50 min from Ancona · homes €1,350 to €1,550 a m² in the center · 11,102 people

Why visit Bertinoro

Bertinoro sits at 254 meters on Mount Cesubeo, a few kilometers south of the Via Emilia between Forlì and Cesena, the Romagna hills rolling toward the Adriatic on a clear day visible from the panoramic balcony locals call the Belvedere. The town's signature object is the Colonna delle Anella in Piazza della Libertà, a white-stone column with twelve iron rings, erected in 1300 by the noble families of the borgo so visitors arriving from the Via Emilia could tie their horse to a ring and be hosted by the family it belonged to.

The Albana grape grown on the surrounding slopes became, in 1987, the first Italian white wine to receive DOCG status; the artist Guerrino Bardeggia's Campana dell'Albana still rings to mark the opening of the harvest. Bertinoro joined the Borghi più belli d'Italia network in 2025.

The municipality holds two designations: Borghi più belli and Città del Vino. Population 11,102.

What to see in Bertinoro

• Colonna delle Anella. White-stone column with twelve iron rings, erected 1300 in Piazza della Libertà so visitors could tie their horse to the ring of the family who would host them.
• Rocca Vescovile. Tenth-century fortress on the summit of Mount Cesubeo, expanded by the Ordelaffi and Malatesta and used as the bishop's residence from the sixteenth century.
• Cattedrale di Santa Caterina. Sixteenth-century cathedral on the upper part of the borgo, rebuilt over an earlier Pieve dedicated to Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

How to get to Bertinoro

Ancona is about 1 h 50 min away by road.

Everything we know about Bertinoro

8. San Severino Marche

Best for a trip without a car. The train stops in the commune.

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.

Cavallini is listed in the MICHELIN Guide and Gambero Rosso.

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

9. Faenza

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

1 h 57 min from Ancona · homes €1,500 to €1,800 a m² in the center · 58,732 people

Why visit Faenza

Faenza sits at 34 meters on the Via Emilia between Bologna and Rimini, on the Lamone river fifty kilometers southeast of Bologna. The city gave its name to faïence: tin-glazed earthenware that emerged here in the late fourteenth century and reached its peak in the early sixteenth, when the bianchi di Faenza, white-on-white ceramics exported across Europe, set the standard for Renaissance maiolica.

The Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, founded in 1908 by Gaetano Ballardini, holds 15,000 square meters of collections from 4000 BC to the present, with rooms dedicated to Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Léger, Dalí, Burri, and Fontana. UNESCO named it a Monument Witness to a Culture of Peace in 2000.

The Cattedrale di San Pietro Apostolo, begun by Giuliano da Maiano in 1474, dominates Piazza della Libertà; Piazza del Popolo next door holds the medieval Palazzo del Podestà and the municipal palace. The Palio del Niballo, an equestrian competition between the five city rioni, runs every June.

La Baita (MICHELIN and Slow Food) and Manueli (Gambero Rosso) are listed in food guides.

What to see in Faenza

• Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche. Founded in 1908 by Gaetano Ballardini, 15,000 square meters spanning 4000 BC to contemporary work by Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, and Fontana.
• Cattedrale di San Pietro Apostolo. Renaissance cathedral begun by Giuliano da Maiano in 1474, completed by 1515, with sculptures by Benedetto da Maiano in the nave.
• Piazza del Popolo. Twin medieval square to Piazza della Libertà, framed by the Palazzo del Podestà and the porticos of the municipal palace.

How to get to Faenza

It has its own railway station. Ancona is about 1 h 57 min away by road.

Everything we know about Faenza