What is Grottammare known for?

Felice Peretti, born in the Paese Alto on 13 December 1521 and elected pope in 1585, rebuilt much of Rome and commissioned two churches in his birthplace. Palm-lined Adriatic seafront with Liberty villas and clean water, holder of both the Bandiera Blu and the Spighe Verdi recognitions. The medieval upper town on the Incasato hill, ranked among the Borghi più belli d'Italia, with eleventh-century walls and brick lanes.

When is the best time to visit Grottammare?

May–Sep. May through September is the main window for Grottammare. The Bandiera Blu seafront is open from late spring, the palms on Lungomare De Gasperi catch full light from June, and the Paese Alto stays a few degrees cooler than the beach. July and August touch the low thirties on the coast; the upper town shaded lanes are the cool retreat. June brings the Cabaret Amore Mio comedy festival to the Paese Alto piazzas, July and August fill the lungomare with the worst of the Adriatic crowd. April and October are quieter, with the inland hills toward Ripatransone and Offida turning green or gold. November through March is the slow season: most beachfront restaurants close, the Paese Alto stays open, and the Sistine Museum keeps winter hours.

Where is Grottammare?

Grottammare is a comune in the province of Ascoli Piceno, Marche region of Italy, about 75 kilometers from Pescara.

How do I get to Grottammare?

From Pescara, Grottammare is roughly 75 km by road.

Marche · Ascoli Piceno

Grottammare

A double town on the Riviera delle Palme, with a palm-lined seafront and a medieval upper borgo where Pope Sixtus V was born.

Known for

POPE SIXTUS V
Felice Peretti, born in the Paese Alto on 13 December 1521 and elected pope in 1585, rebuilt much of Rome and commissioned two churches in his birthplace.
RIVIERA DELLE PALME
Palm-lined Adriatic seafront with Liberty villas and clean water, holder of both the Bandiera Blu and the Spighe Verdi recognitions.
PAESE ALTO
The medieval upper town on the Incasato hill, ranked among the Borghi più belli d'Italia, with eleventh-century walls and brick lanes.

When to visit

Best · May–Sep

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

The festa: San Paterniano, 10 July

Why come

Grottammare sits on the Ascoli Piceno coast at the mouth of the Tesino. The town splits into two nuclei that never merged: a lungomare on the Adriatic, laid out with palms and Liberty villas in the late nineteenth century, and an older settlement on the hill above, reached by climbing away from the water rather than along it. Felice Peretti was born in that upper settlement on 13 December 1521, in a house on what became the borgo's central square.

He left, rose through the church, and returned as Pope Sixtus V only in monument: two churches he commissioned for his birthplace after 1585, one built beside the house itself and one now holding the collection of objects he sent back from Rome. The upper town still carries its eleventh-century walls and the traces of an earlier fortress on the Incasato spur, and it has been named among the Borghi più belli d'Italia. The coast below has its own separate recognitions, for water quality and for the management of the hills behind it. The two halves read as a single biography split in space: the hill holds the birth and the memory, the shore holds the later invention of the town as a seaside resort, and neither nucleus explains itself without the other.

The Sunday letter

We haven’t written Grottammare’s letter yet.

One town every Sunday, with the photo, the food, the festa. Be there when this one comes up. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.

What to see

Paese Alto (Borgo Antico)
Brick lanes climb the Incasato hill inside the eleventh-century walls, past the remains of a fortified spur that looks down over the seafront below.
Chiesa di Santa Lucia
On the central square of the upper town, next to the house of Peretti's birth, a plain sixteenth-century commission from a native son grown powerful.
Museo Sistino
Inside the Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista, the liturgical objects on display came back to the town only after the local boy had become pope.
Lungomare De Gasperi
The promenade runs beneath rows of palms and the facades of Liberty-era villas, its water carrying the Bandiera Blu designation.
Teatro dell'Arancio
A small nineteenth-century theatre set inside the Palazzo del Comune, named for the orange tree still standing in its courtyard.

The slow-trip planner

Building a trip? Find where Grottammare fits in a slow Italy circuit.

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Plan your trip

Through the year

What happens here

Feasts and festivals that come back year after year. We give the month rather than the date, because the date moves and the month rarely does. Check with the source before you plan a journey around one.

The Fair of San Martinomarket
usually held in November. sagritaly.com

Living here

Population 15,814
Commuter belti
Pharmacy in town
High school within a 30-minute drive
Train station in the comune
Nearest airport Ancona / Pescara, 1 h 8 min drive
Regional capital Ancona, 1 h 3 min drive

Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources

Recognised as

The numbers

Elevation: 4 m
Population: 15,814
Surface area: 18 km²

On the map

Google Maps Apple Maps Directions from Pescara

These figures were compiled from public directories — ISTAT, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata — and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.

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