Italy’s secret place: Forget Tuscany – Le Marche offers charm and culture away from the crowds
Sometimes we are proud of how well we know a country. For me, that was the case with Italy – but the Le Marche region, wedged between the spinal cord of the Apennines and the shimmering Adriatic Sea, was never on my agenda. Somehow I doubted I had missed much. What a mistake.
Historically intact hill towns overlook landscapes that have changed little from those that inspired many Renaissance masters.
There is a national park of lumpy highlands, the Sibillini National Park, a seemingly endless supply of historic palaces, galleries and churches laden with medieval artwork, classical gardens, a string of Blue Flag beaches, evenings at the opera and feasts of locally grown produce and good wine.
An even more surprising discovery is that Le Marche, unlike neighboring Tuscany and Umbria, which suck up the crowd like dust in a Dyson, has far fewer visitors. “Le Marche is exactly as the Romans wrote on their maps,” explains Princess Giulia Panichi-Pignatelli. “We are the hic sunt leones (here are lions) of Italy, somewhere between the forests and the wild beasts.”
The princess (even though Italy is a republic, many aristocrats have retained their titles) was the driving force behind Le Marche Segrete, an initiative that helped put the region on the tourist map, but in its most sophisticated, culturally authentic way.
David Wickers tours Italy’s Le Marche region, sandwiched between the spinal cord of the Apennines and the shimmering Adriatic Sea. He spends part of his time there in Urbino (above), Raphael’s birthplace
Above this is the Sibillini National Park, the region’s national park, home to ‘rolling, chestnut-wooded hills and craggy peaks’.
My first port of call is Ascoli Piceno, a Renaissance jewel of sculpted light gray travertine marble. The main square, Piazza del Popolo, is one of the most architecturally sublime squares in all of Italy. It’s best appreciated from an outdoor table at Caffe Meletti, one of the country’s 50 officially designated historic Italian cafes.
Like the premier league San Gimignano in neighboring Tuscany, Ascoli Piceno is a town of aristocratic towers. Even the stalls of the daily fruit and vegetable market are scattered beneath 13th-century Franciscan cloisters. I also visit the cathedral, home to Carlo Crivelli’s magnificent Demidoff Altarpiece, and the town’s 18th-century theater with its five rows of wraparound boxes. Le Marche has 70 historic theaters, which is more per capita than anywhere else in the world.
No words, pictures or imagination can properly prepare you for Urbino, Raphael’s birthplace. Small but immense in appearance, the city is the legacy of the Duke Federico da Montefeltro, whose two-towered brick leviathan of a fortified palace is a design icon of the Renaissance.
Ascoli Piceno’s main square, Piazza del Popolo (above), ‘is one of the most architecturally sublime squares in all of Italy’
“No words, photos, or imagination can properly prepare you for Urbino (above),” says David
East of Le Marche lies ‘200 kilometers of coastline with sandy beaches’. Above is Numana Beach in the region
From Urbino I drive south to Fermo, a microcosm of what Le Marche is all about. It’s small, but the museum still has an early Rubens, the Adoration of the Shepherds, while next door is a medieval library with 16,000 volumes and a huge 18th-century globe – amazingly accurate as long as you don’t look for Australia. Down a steep, unnerving alley is yet another top location, the Underground Roman Cisterns, a cavernous space the size of a cathedral.
Two towns best known for their music are Pesaro, the birthplace of Rossini, which hosts an annual festival in August, and Macerata, where opera is performed in the neoclassical Sferisterio, a 100-meter elliptical series of open colonnades for the stars.
Le Marche is also bordered by two unmissable natural assets. To the west are the gentle, chestnut-wooded hills and craggy peaks of the Sibellini, while to the east is the 200-kilometre stretch of coastline with sandy beaches.
After a few hectic weeks I realized that I had barely nibbled on the feast of attractions that can be found in Le Marche. Last year I went back for two whole months – but came home with many more ‘here be lions’ pockets to explore.