For foodies
Where to eat well in Marche
27 towns
Towns holding at least one place a guide put its name to. The ones several guides agree on come first.
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.
Pesaro
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 11 m
The Adriatic port at the mouth of the Foglia, founded as Roman Pisaurum in 184 BC and given to the world by Rossini in 1792.
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.
Numana
Province: Ancona · 56 m
A Conero coastal town at 56 meters above its port, the Picene harbour that traded with Greek ships from the sixth century BC.
Porto San Giorgio
Province: Fermo · 5 m
A 15,000-resident beach town on the Adriatic between Ancona and Pescara, with one of the largest tourist marinas in the central Adriatic, the medieval Rocca Tiepolo above the harbour, and a long fine-sand seafront under date palms.
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.
Gabicce Mare
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 8 m
The northernmost Marche seaside on the Adriatic, where the coast meets the cliffs of the Parco del San Bartolo at the Romagna border.
Loreto
Province: Ancona · 127 m
A hilltop pilgrimage town at 127 meters above the Adriatic where, since 1294, the Marian sanctuary has guarded the Holy House of Nazareth.
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.
Fabriano
Province: Ancona · 325 m
The Italian paper town at 325 meters, making fine watermarked sheets since 1264.
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.
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.
Sirolo
Province: Ancona · 125 m
A clifftop borgo at 125 meters, above the Due Sorelle sea stacks of the Adriatic.
Fossombrone
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 116 m
An inland Marchigiano town on the Metauro river, layered over a Roman colony with a Renaissance ducal court rising above it.
Recanati
Province: Macerata · 296 m
The hill town at 296 meters overlooking the Musone valley toward the Adriatic.
San Severino Marche
Province: Macerata · 235 m
A two-level town where a 224-meter elliptical piazza in the lower city looks up at a fortified hill crowned by a medieval tower and Salimbeni-painted churches.
Urbino
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 451 m
The Montefeltro capital at 451 meters on twin hills, where Federico II built the Renaissance court that produced Raffaello.
Mondavio
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 280 m
A hill borgo at 280 meters whose fortress never took a cannon shot.
Ripatransone
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 494 m
The Belvedere del Piceno at 494 meters, ridgetop borgo with views to the Adriatic and the narrowest alley in Italy at 43 centimeters.
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.
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.
Magliano di Tenna
Province: Fermo · 281 m
A small Fermo-province borgo at 281 meters above the Tenna river, ringed by fourteenth-century walls with two of its six original towers still standing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Giano dell'Umbria
Province: Perugia
A hill commune between Foligno, Spoleto and Todi, anchored by a Romanesque abbey built over the tomb of a fourth-century martyr.
Assisi
Province: Perugia
A pink limestone town at 424 meters on the western flank of a mountain above the plain, the birthplace of Francis and a UNESCO site since 2000.
Servigliano
Province: Fermo
An eighteenth-century ideal city at 215 meters in the Tenna valley, rebuilt by papal commission on a 137-by-144-meter quadrangle after the old hill village collapsed.
Labro
Province: Rieti
A 355-person stone borgo at 628 meters, restored since the 1960s by a Belgian architect and his descendants.
San Nicola Arcella
Province: Cosenza
A cliff village above the Tyrrhenian Riviera dei Cedri, where a sea arch fronts a cove only reachable on foot or by boat.