With events
Sagre and feste in Marche
26 towns
Each town page lists what happens there and the month it happens in, with the source. Always check with the town before you travel.

Montefiore dell'Aso
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 412 m
A hilltop borgo at 412 meters between the Aso and Menocchia valleys, holding six surviving panels of Carlo Crivelli's 1472 polyptych.

Arquata del Tronto
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 777 m
At 777 meters between two national parks, the Marche commune levelled by the 2016 earthquakes and still rebuilding nine years on.

Senigallia
Province: Ancona · 5 m
Thirteen kilometers of fine sand on the Adriatic, hometown to a chef and a photographer whose names carry beyond the region.

Treia
Province: Macerata · 342 m
A Macerata hill town at 342 meters, the Roman municipium Trea, renamed by Pope Pius VI in 1790 after centuries as Montecchio.

Acqualagna
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 204 m
The Italian truffle capital at 204 meters in the Metauro valley, supplying two-thirds of the country's white truffle harvest from the surrounding limestone woods.

Arcevia
Province: Ancona · 535 m
A hilltop borgo at 535 meters above the Misa and Nevola valleys, defended in the Middle Ages by a ring of nine satellite castles.

Ascoli Piceno
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 154 m
The travertine city at 154 meters where the Tronto meets the Castellano, capital of the Piceni and host of the Quintana joust.

Fermo
Province: Fermo · 319 m
The provincial capital on the Sabulo hill at 319 meters, with 2,200 square meters of Augustan Roman cisterns running under the centro storico.

Camerino
Province: Macerata · 661 m
A university city at 661 meters on the ridge between the Chienti and Potenza, rebuilding after 2016.

Cingoli
Province: Macerata · 631 m
The Balcone delle Marche at 631 meters, a hilltop borgo where on clear days the view runs from the Sibillini to the Croatian coast.

Gradara
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 142 m
The walled hill borgo at 142 meters above the Adriatic where Dante set the deaths of Paolo and Francesca, with one of Italy's best-preserved castles.

Grottammare
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 4 m
A double town on the Riviera delle Palme, with a palm-lined seafront and a medieval upper borgo where Pope Sixtus V was born.

Macerata
Province: Macerata · 315 m
The provincial capital at 315 meters between the Chienti and Potenza, home to Italy's oldest university and the Sferisterio open-air opera arena.

Matelica
Province: Macerata · 354 m
A Verdicchio town at 354 meters in the upper Esino valley, with a Roman marble globe in its archaeological museum.

Mondolfo
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 144 m
A walled hill borgo at 144 meters above the Adriatic, with the frazione of Marotta and its beach below.

Montecosaro
Province: Macerata · 267 m
A walled hilltop borgo at 267 meters above the Chienti valley, with a Romanesque basilica rebuilt in 1125 on the river plain below.

Monteprandone
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 266 m
A hilltop borgo at 266 meters above the lower Tronto valley, its walled center climbing toward a summit church with a view to the Adriatic.

Morrovalle
Province: Macerata · 247 m
A hilltop borgo at 247 meters above the Chienti valley, its walled centro storico grown from a medieval castle called Mor-ro.

Offida
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 293 m
A hill borgo at 293 meters in the Piceno wine country, with a Romanesque-Gothic cliff church and women still working bobbin lace.

Pergola
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 265 m
A hill town at 265 meters in the upper Cesano valley, holding the only surviving group of Roman gilded bronze statues from antiquity.

Petritoli
Province: Fermo · 358 m
A hilltop borgo at 358 meters above the Aso valley, formed around the year 1000 from the merger of three castles.

San Ginesio
Province: Macerata · 680 m
The Balcony of the Sibillini at 680 meters, where a 1295 pilgrim hospital and the only flowery gothic collegiate church in the Marche stand within the same walls.

Sarnano
Province: Macerata · 539 m
A 539-meter medieval borgo of baked brick at the foot of the Sibillini, with thermal springs that ran for 84 years until the 2016 earthquake.

Sassoferrato
Province: Ancona · 386 m
A two-level Apennine town above Roman Sentinum, where the consuls Decius Mus and Fabius Maximus defeated four allied tribes in 295 BC.

Serra San Quirico
Province: Ancona · 409 m
A stone borgo on Monte Murano at the entrance to the Gola della Rossa, ringed by 1300 walls with covered passageways called copertelle.

Staffolo
Province: Ancona · 442 m
The Verdicchio balcony at 442 meters above three valleys, with a near-circular medieval wall ring and a wine museum carved into the ramparts.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover

Cicala
Province: Catanzaro
A village of 887 people at 829 meters, founded in 1616 by farmers asking for land.

Fossombrone
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
An inland Marchigiano town on the Metauro river, layered over a Roman colony with a Renaissance ducal court rising above it.

Bagnoli del Trigno
Province: Isernia
The 'Pearl of Molise', a 637-resident borgo built into and around a massive limestone outcrop above the Trigno valley, with a medieval castle rebuilt on its summit.

Varenna
Province: Lecco
A fishing village founded in 769 on the Lecco arm of Lake Como, with a steep grid of streets falling into the water.

Rocca di Botte
Province: L'Aquila
At 750 meters on the Carseolani slopes between Abruzzo and Lazio, the birthplace of an eleventh-century hermit and a fief of the Colonna.
