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WineCommunity.com - Italy: a great success for Marche at Vinitaly

The wine cellar, situated inside the Region Marche stand, literally had a great hold over the public. "Verdicchio", "Red Conero", "Red Piceno", "Pecorino" and "Passerina" have been in great demand.
The male public of the national and international Exhibition of wines and spirits, has liked to taste red wines, while women tasted white wines. Many foreign visitors tasted the "marchigiano" wine, in particular, some Australians, Argentines, Chileans, Californians, Hungarians and Russians.
The wine companies from Marche were very busy in order to develop the oenologic business, taking also care of the peculiar exchange of information in order to understand the tendencies from a productive and trading point of view.
"The Exhibition in Verona "has emphasized the regional Agriculture councillor, Paolo Petrini" develops the aggregation strategy between exhibitors and visitors.
This strategy is necessary in order to be present in the worldwide markets with a common identity that allows us to concentrate in a positive way the resources of European funds".
The Region Marche has invested a lot, and with satisfaction, every year the spaces are occupied by various companies through a "turn over", declared the vice-president of the regional Committee and spokesman for the Tourism, Luciano Agostini.
The presence in Verona wants to strengthen the alliance between the enogastonomic and touristic sectors. An exceptional binomial where wine plays a fundamental role.
"The promotion of the territory happens in particular by developing enogastronomy with healthy and quality products. Naturally, this increases tourism in the region Marche and that's why we participate to Vinitaly, added Agostini, in order to introduce excelling quality and to transmit the image of our region in all its beautiful shapes".
In conclusion, the region Marche is an important protagonist for its quality production and its widespread success during the 41st edition of Vinitaly.
Among the curiosities, the Mancinelli winery with its red "Lacrima" ("Tear"), to which we will soon dedicate our survey "Company of the Month".
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Peaceful lifestyle helps Marche's people outlive peers.

According to the ISTAT life expectancy is closely related to where people live. In the north of Italy the average age of men has increased by 8.4 years for men, by 7.2 years for women compared with 1974.
On a Regional level, Marche and Umbria have the longest longevity, with an average of 78.2 and 78.1 years. In 16 of 103 Provinces men live longer than 78 years on average. Leading the classification is Florence (78.8), followed by Macerata (78.7) and Pescara and Ascoli Piceno (78.5).
Next in classification are mostly Provinces in the Centre: Arezzo and Prato (78.4), Siena (78.3), Perugia (78.2) and Pistoia (78,0), or North-East, particularly in Emilia-Romagna, among which Rimini (78.4), Modena (78.3), Bologna and Ravenna (78.2).
The Centre turns out to be the part of Italy where man and women taken together live longest. On the other hand, the numbers go down considerably for the North-West and the South, respectively 25 pct (6 out of 24) and 28 pct (10 out of 36).
The inhabitants of the often overlooked Marche region in central Italy learned this week that statistically at least they have something to shout about .
As a national group, Italians already outlive most other Europeans and Marche, on the eastern slopes of the Apennines, seems to be the place where conditions combine to produce maximum longevity .
The average life expectancy for the region's inhabitants is now 78 for men and 84 for women, according to national statistics bureau Istat. This compares to EU averages of 75.1 and 81.6. The secret of why the 'Marchigiani' live longer appears to be tied up with the unhurried country lifestyle that most of them lead. Two thirds of the region's land are still given over to farming .
One of Marche's oldest inhabitants is Domenico Dari-Mattiacci, who turned 100 last June. A spritely figure, he stopped working about 10 years ago after a lifetime spent looking after pigs and hens on the family farm near the town of San Severino Marche .
Dario-Mattiacci, who has rarely travelled more than a few kilometres from his home, reckons a "relaxed approach to life" and a steady refusal to worry about clocks are the secrets of his longevity. "My life has never been very complicated. For example, I didn't ever marry. That probably helped," he says .
He now lives with his 68-year-old niece and spends his time going for walks, chatting with his younger friends in the local piazza and watching quizzes on television. The niece, Franca Angeloni, said she had been unsurprised to learn on the TV news that her region was a national record holder for longevity .
"It's all the fresh air and good food," she said, noting that most of the family's food was fresh and came from the surrounding countryside .
The region, once one of the main granaries of the Roman empire, is rich in vineyards, olive groves, orchards and wheat fields. Being a coastal region, fresh fish is also readily available .
Farmers' union Coldiretti agreed that diet probably had a lot to do with the long lives of the Marchigiani. "A healthy way of life is closely linked to eating habits and in Marche these still depend on local produce" .
SOCIAL SCENE .
But some observers also pointed out that in the region's towns and villages, the over-60s - who make up about a third of the population - are also part of an active social scene .
Instead of facing the loneliness and isolation that often await the old in more urban regions, they frequently have busy lives, involving dancing classes, sports, and an active involvement in the life of the extended family .
"They don't feel useless because after retirement many carry on working, perhaps teaching young generations the secrets of their trades," said the local artisans' association .
The president of Marche's regional government Gian Mario Spacca welcomed the new longevity statistics and said they were a "comforting" testament to the "quality of life" in his region .
They may also be welcomed in Marche because finally the region's people can be known for something apart from the frequency with which they acted as tax collectors for 19th century popes .
This fact led to a stereotypical view of the Marchigiano as tight-fisted and money-grabbing and spawned a fervent central Italian adage holding that: "It's better to have a corpse in the house than a Marchigiano at the door" .
Italian region has long-life secret By Martin Penner - ANSATop

Rustic Property in Italy By Verdiana Amorosi - OhmyNews South Korea

Many British tourists dream of buying an Italian country home.
Over the last few years, many foreigners have turned their dreams into realities. Many families have already made their choice, building a rural home, and many others look set to do the same thing.
If you dream of finding a rustic property for sale in Italy and know where to look, you can still find some real bargains. Probably the six best regions for such properties in Italy are Abruzzi, Le Marche, Puglia (Apulia), Sardinia and, of course, Tuscany and Umbria.
Each region offers a large variety of different atmospheres and attractions. The ever-popular regions of Umbria and Tuscany have been slightly overrun by the British in search of their dream homes in Italy. It is possible to find rustic properties in both regions, but many of these homes have already been renovated and modernized, making them quite expensive.
Abruzzi, less known than its neighbours Tuscany and Umbria, is in the center of Italy and still offers untouched, stunningly beautiful landscapes. Visitors are astonished by the striking, magical snowstorms in the winter and by the vast sandy beaches on the Adriatic Sea in the summer. Abruzzi has caves, mountains, rivers, castles, national parks, festivals and fantastic cuisine. For the rustic property hunter there is even more good news.
Property prices in Abruzzi are much cheaper than those in Umbria and Tuscany, and the number of rural, rustic, rundown and in-need-of-renovation properties for sale in Abruzzi is high, precisely because the region has yet to be discovered by the masses.
Le Marche borders the Adriatic Sea and boasts a stunning natural landscape. It too offers country houses at a low cost, and there are many to choose from. One of the good things about the region is the presence of Ryanair and easyJet. These two airlines now fly from the U.K. to Marche, so it is becoming better known and more accessible for British buyers.
Puglia is located in Southern Italy, right at the south-eastern tip, and is blessed with hundreds of kilometres of stunning beaches. Property in Puglia is more popular and sometimes more expensive, but if you hunt carefully you can still find yourself a beautifully located rustic property.
The island of Sardinia is a typical Mediterranean island gem with a stunning climate, friendly locals and a landscape that changes from white sandy beaches to pine forests to rugged mountain peaks. Property prices range from incredibly cheap to incredibly expensive.
Ryanair now flies to Sardinia from the U.K., which has opened up the island to more tourism and makes Sardinia an excellent destination for Britons seeking investment potential from their property purchase.
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Autumn hideaways on the continent by Anthony Capella- Sunday Times

After threats and cajoling, our travel experts have finally fessed up. These are the destinations - in Greece, France, Italy and Spain - they slip away to when the rest of us aren't looking
France, Greece, Spain, Italy . . . yawn. Nothing new there: you've already seen all the bits that are worth seeing, haven't you?
Don't you believe it. These European countries may be our favourite summer stamping grounds, but each one hides a secret, a region that's little visited by foreigners, or even its own countrymen - not because it isn't wonderful, but simply because it's unknown.
Well, not entirely unknown. We're lucky enough to have a quartet of writers who really understand their turf. Each of them nominated a region of the country they love that has minimal tourism, but maximum appeal - the places they go to themselves when they want to avoid the crowds. Anthony Peregrine picked Gascony, in France; Dana Facaros selected Messenia, in Greece; Robert Elms chose the Basque area of Spain; and Anthony Capella plumped for Le Marche, in Italy. Then then designed an autumn short break to show off each to its best advantage.
So, get off the beaten track and prepare to explore some fresh territory with guides you can trust. You'll find buzzing cities, sleepy villages, culture, history, beaches, mountains and some exceptional food; the one thing you won't find, of course, is tourists.
LE MARCHE
Why? "Always dear to me has been this lonely hill," wrote the 19th-century Romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi in The Infinite. He was describing the view from his home in Recanati, in the south of Le Marche, looking towards the awesome splendour of the Sibillini mountains. There can be few hills in Italy that still qualify as lonely, but here eagles' nests outnumber the tiny villages and there are more sheep than tourists.
The area has been described as "the new Tuscany", but Tuscany is gentle and civilised; Le Marche is all harsh contrasts. Locals call it "the whole of Italy in one place": snow-covered alps soar over sandy beaches, rolling farmland tumbles into primeval gorges and roads are crowded by dense forests of beech or pine.
This diversity is equally true of the cuisine. In the north, you find rich dishes based on pork and cream: in the south, vegetable dishes more like those of Campania. In between, meals are based on the woods, mountains and sea. This makes autumn a good time to go - as well as brodetto, a hearty broth made from 12 types of fish, you'll eat mushrooms, game, wild boar, spicy goose stew and vincigrassi, the rich local lasagne. And those endless beech woods conceal an even greater treasure: white truffles, an ingredient the marchiognesi use as liberally in their cooking as other regions use parsley.
How? Even the approach to Le Marche is dramatic. As you head down the SS3 superstrada, turn off at the sign for Furlo onto the old Roman Via Flamina, crammed between limestone cliffs and the green Candigliano river. At one point, the road passes through a tunnel built on the orders of Emperor Vespasian in AD76 - apparently, you can still see the chisel marks in the roof.
Three towns have truffle festivals on the last weekend in October and the first two weekends in November: Acqualagna, Sant'Agata Feltria and Sant'Angelo in Vado (where there is even a weekly truffle-dog market). Montemonaco, not to be outdone, holds a chestnut festival in November, while Talamello celebrates formaggio di fossa.
There are plenty of restaurants that specialise in truffle and game dishes, some very good indeed. Of Symposium Quattro Stagioni, in Serrungarina, one reviewer wrote: "I still dream of a meal that started with a simple lentil soup with breast of thrush and truffles, followed by a dish of potato pappardelle with game-bird ragu and lemon thyme, continued on with wild boar with an ethereal potato and celery purée, then a taste of some pecorino that had been buried a couple of months in a divine ditch, and finished with a cool zabaglione on a piece of bitter chocolate."
For seafood, head to the coast. In Senigallia, Moreno Cedroni has earned a Michelin star at Madonnina del Pescatore for creations that include Mediterranean sushi encased in black carnaroli rice. The shore is prettiest around Rosso Conero, an area that also defines the best red wine-producing area. Of particular note are the award-winning wines made by a former physicist, Antonio Terni, at Le Terrazze.
After all that indulgence, you'll want some exercise. Hike on the Grande Anello dei Sibillini, or - more gently - through the gothic Gola dell'Infernaccio, or Hell's Throat, a twisting limestone gorge. You can also walk underground at the Frasassi caves, at Genga, which include a cavern so large, it could swallow Milan's cathedral.
Or simply explore some of the prettiest small towns in Italy, such as Amandola, Cagli, Ascoli Piceno (home of the eponymous stuffed olives) and the stunning, fortified San Leo.
The essentials: fly to Ancona with Ryanair (www.ryanair.com).
Accommodation comes in the shape of the region's new generation of boutique hotels
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Doing the business in Le Marche by Helena Frith Powell - Times Online

France may be saturated with Brit-owned B&B, but it's still possible to buy a cheap guesthouse in Italy, finds Helena Frith Powell of The Sunday Times
It's fun to live in the sun but hard to make a living. One option is to run a B&B. In France, Brits have opened so many that it has become known as the maladie anglaise. The market is saturated, not only because of all the Brits who own B&B, but also because an increasing number of British holidaymakers now own houses there, so they no longer need to rent a room.
Italy's Le Marche region is proving a popular alternative destination. Between the Adriatic Sea and the Appenine Mountains, it is famous for great food, culture, rolling hills and cheap stone farmhouses: an irresistible combination for the expat.
Richard Dixon and Peter Greene bought a 12th-century property near Cagli, close to Urbino, in 1988. It cost them £17,000, and has two cottages, a vineyard and some land, with stunning views to the mountains beyond.
When they first arrived, there was a huge choice available. "We picked this one because it had two properties and it was close to the main road," says Greene. "Some of the others we saw are totally cut off in winter; not very helpful if you're trying to run a B&B business."
He was working as a barrister in London and Dixon was a PR officer for the Greater London Council. "We were 32 and 36 and just wanted a change," says Greene. "It felt like the right time to do it. And for £17,000, we couldn't go wrong." They set up their business a couple of years after moving over.
"A lot of people just rush into renovations and starting up the business, but it's essential to get a feel for the house before you start knocking down walls."
They rent out a cottage, which sleeps four, and a chapel, which sleeps two. "It has worked out well, but I have to say that when I look at some of the sums of money people are spending on wrecks now, I wonder how they are ever going to break even."
Greene says that learning Italian is essential. He and Dixon recently won a battle against a local quarryman who wanted to dig up all the fields in front of the cottage they let. "We wouldn't have got anywhere if we hadn't spoken Italian. As it was, it was an extremely stressful time. My other piece of advice is to keep everything above board: it's very easy to cheat the system, but it's just not worth it. You need to get all your permissions in place, because if something goes wrong, like a quarry plan, you need to show what you're doing and that you've followed every rule."
There are three different legal structures for letting businesses in Italy. The simplest is the B&B, but the most rooms you can let out is three. At the end of the year, you file a simple declaration, and there is no Vat. The tax payable is graded depending on your income: the lowest band is up to €20,000 (£14,000). You have to be resident at the place, but there are no business taxes: B&Bs are rated family enterprises.
The "country house" structure is more complicated but allows eight rooms and a restaurant. You need to be in the countryside and will have to pay business taxes. If you want to go for Italy's agriturismo structure, you have to prove that at least 50% of your income is from your farm or agricultural concern. Subsidies are available for all three structures, so find out what you might be eligible for. The best place to ask is the chamber of commerce or Confcommercio (www.confcommercio.it).
Jane and Ian Foster bought an old wine co-operative near the village of Cupramontana, close to Ancona, in 2001. They paid £60,000 for it and have spent about £400,000 doing it up. They let out three bedrooms.
"It's been great," says Jane. "But my advice to anyone is to really check your contract with your builders. You have to understand what is included and what is not, otherwise you could end up with beautifully tiled floors and no electricity." Her husband agrees. "We have gone at least £50,000 over budget and we're not finished yet. You should add 25% to your estimated cost and 25% to the time you think it's going to take you, and then you may be coming close."
The couple looked elsewhere before settling on Le Marche. "Tuscany was overrun with Brits and twice the price," says Jane, who used to work for London Underground. "We came here to integrate into the community. We love the food, the countryside and the people."
Giuliano Gnagnatti, whose company, Paradise Possible, promotes the region, says there are still about 60,000 abandoned farmhouses available. "But when we started the business in 1997, there were about 100,000. Prices have gone up dramatically since then," he says. "A lot of that is due to Ryanair starting a daily flight to Ancona in 1999."
Gnagnatti says a four-bed farmhouse needing restoration will cost about £150,000, and a ruin about £60,000- £105,000. Higher-quality restoration work costs about £700 per sq m; lower-quality work about £400 per sq m.
The rental market is vibrant. There is a lot to see and do; it is one of the few places in Italy where you can visit both beach and mountains the same day.
"The main thing you should consider if you're looking to set up a B&B is the location," says Gnagnatti. "You need to be easily accessible, as well as within a short drive to the main attractions."
Eileen Cronin-Salomone, originally from Ireland but brought up in London, had already lived in Italy for several years before she set up a B&B.
"I was married to an Italian but when he died I sold up and went home," she says. "That was in 1988. Then four years ago I suddenly realised how much I missed the way of life and the quality of life in Italy. I wanted to go back."
Cronin-Salomone viewed about 600 houses in several regions before finding an old squire's house near San Ginesio.
"It was my 50th birthday and the agent showed up where I was staying, telling me he had three places for me to see. I told him that I had a party to plan but he insisted. My daughter Erika and I went along. The first two were dreadful and by the time I had fought my way through the brambles to see the third I was in a terrible mood. Then I turned around to talk to Erika and I was right under the Sibellini Mountains."
Cronin-Salomone, 53, paid £95,000 for the house and has spent another £245,000 doing it up. She now has three en-suite bedrooms that she lets. "People think running a B&B is a joy ride - it's not," she says. "Having said that, I absolutely love it. If I'm ever in a bad mood I just need to look at the mountains to remember why I'm here and how special it is."
Although Le Marche has a lovely coast, the British are more interested in the interior, says Fabrizio Fangonesi, who runs Immobiliare Ambiente in Sirolo. "They all want old stone houses," he says. "In fact, they've caused a big price increase in properties to renovate, but the market is stabilising now."
There are plenty of places available with letting possibilities. If you can face renovating, Paradise Possible has a 16-room farmhouse for sale near Arcevia, for £140,000.
Valentino Cingolani, who runs agency Lovemarche, says the influx of Brits here peaked in 2002 and has stabilised. "However, I think it will pick up soon because Ryanair has just announced it is going to start flights from Liverpool to Ancona."
Pam and David Bates bought an abandoned farmhouse, between the coast and the Sibillini Mountains in 2001 for £42,000. It has three storeys, with 330sq m of living space. They opened for business in 2003. "Just like the television programmes, we were ready, literally, 10 minutes before the first guest walked in," says Pam. They spent about £240,000 doing up the property and will break even this year.
"It's not an easy way to make a living," she says. "You're on call 24/7 and you need to be on top of the marketing at all times. I spend at least an hour every day on the internet, raising our profile with search engines."
Pam's advice is to start with a good business plan. "Lots of people just come over and say they're going to run a B&B. That's all very well, but how are you going to get your punters? You need to be internet-savvy and to know about marketing. I carry leaflets around the whole time and set myself targets of how many I have to distribute per month."
She still works in London for an event firm, while her husband and daughter run Villa Sibillini. David says that despite the downsides, it's worth it: "You're never going to get rich, but you have the benefits of living in beautiful countryside, serving good food and wine. What could be better?"
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Le Marche Undiscovered Italy by Achal Dhruva - FE Business Traveller (India)

A four-day tour of the Le Marche region in Italy finds Achal Dhruva shuttling between grand churches, exquisite beaches, astonishingly scenic countryside and Roman amphitheatres
Roman arena at Urbs Salvia
The first glimpse of Italy, the sight of dawn breaking over the snow capped peaks of the Alps adorned with a mellow golden hue as I stepped out of the Malpense airport in Milan left me rooted on the spot for a couple of minutes. When I first read Mario Puzo's, 'Godfather' I could not really relate to Michael Corleone being hit by what his Sicilian shepherd bodyguards described as a 'thunderbolt' when he first comes across the sheer innocent beauty of Apollina, a young country lass in Sicily. Well, I may not have been struck by a 'thunderbolt' but my four-day whirlwind sojourn of Le Marche organised by the Italian State Tourist Board (ENIT) at the end of September has certainly left me enamoured with the beauty of this region in central Italy.
A bird's eye view of Urbino
Situated on the eastern side of central Italy between the Adriatic Sea and the high Apennine mountains, Le Marche is an idyllic region much of it still untouched by the ravages of mass tourism. While the Adriatic coastline with major ports and beach towns like Ancona, San Benedetto del Torro Pesaro etc have been a mecca for sun-n-sand holidaymakers, it is the countryside which has been attracting a steady influx of visitors in search of a peaceful relaxing holiday amidst nature. The fertile rolling hills near the coast to the picture perfect mountainous hinterland are dotted with quaint villages and towns, each a treasure trove of history, Renaissance art and culture. And getting more popular as an alternative to Tuscany and Umbria, its more celebrated neighbours.
Though we landed in Milan (after a comfortable and direct flight on Alitalia), the city was a blur. A quick stopover for lunch, a dekko of the Sabyasacchi Mukherji fashion show at the famous Milan International Fashion Week and we on our way speeding towards Le Marche or more specifically Le Foresteria, a country inn style of hotel situated 500 kms away, close to Ancona, a major port city and the administrative headquarters of the region. The next four days were a mad rush of kaleidoscopic images and experiences, which thanks to the efforts of our entertaining interpreter Leonardo and knowledgeable guide Mariela gave us an insight to the various facets of the region. With so many places to write about it was really difficult to pen them all and even what little I have dared to spell out is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. As they say, seeing is believing. But this much I am certain of now - there is more to Italy than Rome and Milan...there is Le Marche.
Day 1: Tolentino-Abbey Fiastra-Loro Piceno-San Ginesio-Civitanova Marche
Tolentino
Loreto

It was a dull overcast and chilly morning as we drove into Tolentino, a small thriving medieval town set on rolling hills, located about 11 kms from the hotel. Despite the light drizzle, the central square of the town, Piazza della Liberta bore a festive look and was crammed with townsfolk participating in an event felicitating the fire brigade. The brightly uniformed band, which included children, and bright red fire engines made a sharp contrast to the imposing old brick structures including one of the oddest medieval clock towers. The tower has three clocks, one showing the time, the other showing the days and months and the third displaying the phases of the moon.
An old timer confided with a wink, that women's behaviour is influenced greatly by the phases of the moon. "The moon clock helps us keep track of when we should not rub them the wrong way."
The other attraction of the square is the International Museum of Caricature and Humour in Art housed in Palazzo Sangallo. There are some 3,000 works by artists across the world. However, the main draw of the town is the beautiful Gothic basilica, Cappellone di San Nicola, shrine of Saint Nicholas.
Saint Nicholas, born in 1245 AD, became a friar in the Order of St Augustine and entered the monastery in 1275 at Tolentino where he died in 1305. Although a noted preacher and pastoral worker, his fame rests on the numerous miracles attributed to his intercession, attracting pilgrims from all over the country. The basilica houses grandiose frescoes, vivid masterpieces of the 14th century. The embalmed body of the saint is housed in a finely engraved crypt.
Tolentino town with a population of about 20,000 is typical of Le Marche region with a maze of narrow cobbled streets and one- or two-storied brick buildings with tiled roofs and shuttered windows. Wandering through the lanes I noticed plastic bottles of water placed outside most doors. On questioning, Mariela said the practice was not some local superstition but rather a practical way of keeping cats from littering the doorstep. The highlight of the visit was a sumptuous lunch with the mayor of Tolentino, Lucano Ruffini who summed up the lure of Le Marche. "It's a more beautiful countryside, less expensive and people are warm and hospitable than the neighbouring and popular Tuscany region. Le Marche is a very peaceful place where one can discover many unknowns," he said. The last was reinforced on many occasions over the next three days of our explorations.
San Ginesio
The countryside beauty of Le Marche
We drove up a winding path to San Ginesio, a delightful small town with a strong medieval stamp and were treated to some breathtaking views in the fading light. The town retains its original medieval plan and walls as well as many early buildings including two churches, the 10th century church of San Michele and the 13th century church of San Francesco. The Romanesque portal of the church is topped by a highly unusual Gothic brick facade while the tower to one side has an oddly-shaped onion dome sitting on it. Since it was nightfall by the time we reached we missed out on the chance to see the town but were able to witness a medieval dance performance in the church by young local girls before dinner. The highlight of the dinner was Leonardo regaling us with a few songs in Italian on the piano and his tales about devil worship. "San Ginesio is known as the village of the devil. A long time ago a famous archbishop refused to enter the village claiming that it housed the devil. People used to make masks to invite the devil and hang them in one corner of the roof and also conduct animal sacrifice. The archbishop called an exorcist to cleanse the village. You can find such masks even today," Leonardo divulged with a serious deadpan expression. When all of us jumped upon him with questions regarding the holes in his story, he said with a wide grin, "My cousin told me this..." and then mischievously challenged, "we can go right now and search for the mask on the roof." After a long tiring day we did not end up verifying Leonardo's story but it certainly added to the Gothic ambience and spiced up a wonderful dinner.
Day 2: Camerino-Visso-Fiastra-Sarnano-Urbisaglia
Camerino
Our first stop was Camerino, most of which was built between the 14th and 16th century. The highpoint of the visit literally was the portico courtyard of the Ducal Palace. The splendid balcony leading from the palace offers some breathtaking views of the Sibillini mountains. It was a mesmerising sight to watch rays of sunlight break through the cloud cover lighting up a small patch of mist covered mountainscape.
Fiastra
Our lunch halt was at Fiastra, a small mountain village in the heart of Monti Sibillini, the mountain range which includes one of the highest peaks on the Italian mainland - Monte Vettore (2,476 metres). The wild tarns and windswept high plains of the Monti Sibillini provide some of the Marche's most spectacular landscapes. This mountainous region is highly picturesque and its beauty is enhanced by the fact that it is still well off the usual tourist beat apart from winter skiers and intrepid ramblers in high summer. The roads are fantastic making this region very accessible and a treat for long drives. The 30 kilometres odd drive down from Fiastra, where we had some exotic homemade cheese and rabbit meat at a family run restaurant, to Sarnano was simply mind-blowing. The mountains chiseled by glaciers and limestone erosion, possess some outstanding natural sights. The lower slopes are thickly forested with upland plains, which are a mass of flowers in spring ending in snow-capped peaks. The combination of sheer beauty and feeling of isolation has to be experienced to be believed. Despite several entreaties on my part to park along the road to absorb the breathtaking valley view, Alberto our driver made just a two minute stop for us to click pictures all the while promising that I would get a better view further down the road. As it turned out before I knew it we were winding our way down on the other side to Sarnano. Though I must admit that the peeping view of Sarnano, a bustling spa town, through a thin veil of mist in the valley below was also stunning but not in the league of the towering snow-capped peaks we had left behind.
Day 3: Urbs Salvia-Mogliano-Fermo-Ascoli Piceno- San Benedetto del Tronto
Urbs Salvia
Cobbled street in Tolentino
It was a bright sunny day and the warm weather raised our spirits as we set out for Urbs Salvia to step back in time, way back to Roman times. At the foothill of a small village Urbisaglia, lie the remains of Urbs Salvia, a town founded in 1st century BC. The remains at this archaeological site comprise of the amphitheatre built in the 1st century AD and is one of the region's most conspicuous Roman ruins. It was built by Luccio Flavio Silva Nonio Basso, a general who was born in the village and led a legion to Massada in Israel. After he retired he built the amphitheatre or Anfiteatro in order to win public opinion. At the inauguration of the amphitheatre 40 pairs of gladiators fought. Two kinds of fights used to take place here, one between gladiators and the other, gladiators pitched against wild animals. Mostly bears and boars were used as lions were too expensive. Also water battles were fought in the arena. Water pipes were laid from the water tank on the hill to fill the arena, the level rising to about one and half metres. This sport was meant for the lords where the objective was to overturn the opponent's boat. The slaves rowing the boat were tied and generally died when a boat overturned. After that I lost the train of Leonardo's translation of Mariela's explanation as I slipped into a daydream of the arena filled with frenzied spectators baying for blood as I took on ten hefty armoured gladiators al la Russell Crowe style.
Mogliano
Fermo town
The only reason for including Mogliano, a small unassuming town which strings a series of small, red-brick piazzas, as our next stop was for its weekly market. Rows of stalls had been set up on the main street selling everything from vegetables to household utensils to shoes and clothes. A scheduled 20 minute stopover turned into a nearly two hour romp thanks to the ladies who went on a shopping spree. The town has one star attraction, Lorenzo Lotto's magnificent painting of the Assumption (1548) in the church of Santa Maria Assunta. Also worth a look is the small town theatre made completely from wood. It seats 210 people and has a three-tiered balcony on the sides and frescoes on the ceiling. The theatre was destroyed in a fire 20 years ago and was reopened last February. The subscription cost is 50 Euros and entitles one for three performances. Tickets are priced at 14 Euros. This is yet another typical feature of Marche region. Even a small town has its own theatre. The atmosphere was very lively with ladies bargaining and the men soaking in the sunlight on street side cafes sipping wine and smoking. To my surprise I spied a few Indian faces among the crowd. They did not appear to be tourists. Leonardo informed that quite a few Indians had settled in Marche region.
Ascoli Piceno
Dome in St Nicholas Church in Tolentino
Ascoli Piceno is a major centre in southern Marche which tourist brochures describe as a place you can see in a day yet never forget. We spent slightly over an hour and visited the two main squares to get a flavour of the place. Piazza del Popolo, the traffic-free, main square lined with street side cafes is perhaps one of the most elegant provincial squares in Italy. To one side of the square stands the Palazzo del Popolo, a splendid 13th century building guarded over by a monumental statue of Pope Paul III. A peep inside and you get a view of a beautiful arcaded Renaissance courtyard. San Francesco, a great Gothic church, towers at one end of the square presenting a sobering but pleasing effect. The other main square, Piazza Arringo, is almost as impressive as its big sister and is flanked by the Duomo or cathedral, and the town hall or Palazzo Comunale. Inside here you will find the Pinacoteca Civica, Ascoli's art gallery, a carpet-bag collection of minor works by major artists and major works by minor artists. The main square of Ascoli bears a festive air on the first Sunday of August when it plays host to La Quintana, a jousting tournament, one of the most exciting of medieval shows in the Marche. The high point of the games is when riders from the city's six districts tilt with lances for the target.
Day 4: Urbino-Portonovo-Loreto-Macerata
Urbino
The final day of our Italian sojourn started at 7 am when we departed for Urbino, a University township. The local population is 15,000 while the student population is pegged at 20,000. While this gives the town an air of youthful exuberance, the town is steeped in history and is billed as a seat of great Italian art and architecture with its centro storico listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The hub of the town is the animated triangle of Piazza della Republica situated in a hollow between two hills. Palace Ducale of Duke Federico da Montefeltro houses the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, a remarkable collection of paintings including one of the world's greatest and most enigmatic images, Flagellation of Christ by Piero della Francesca.
Almost the entire town is a maze of pink-bricked alleys within fortified walls dating from the 15th and 16th century. The full grandeur of the town juxtaposed against the surrounding countryside can be experienced from the summit of the hill.
Portonovo
View of the Adriatic coastline before Portonovo
Just south of Ancona, the administrative headquarters and major port of the region, rises the solitary limestone peak of Monte Conero, whose steep slopes slide down to the sea and the prettiest beaches on the whole of the Northern Adriatic shore. Portonovo is the first port of call and the smallest retreat on the Conero Rivera. It is a picture postcard view of a white wisp of beach wedged between the craggy cliffs and light blue sea. You wind down the road to this collection of hotels, restaurants, campsites and makeshift beach huts on a narrow strip of beach, one of the most scenic and idyllic that I ever saw.
Loreto
The striking hill town of Loreto lies just inland from the Adriatic Sea and is one of the world's most famous and important shrines to the cult of the Virgin Mary. The town exists to service the thousands of pilgrims who travel here from around the world. The great dome of the Sanctuario della Santa Casa dominates the countryside for miles around. The curious statue within the walls of the Santa Casa of the Black Madonna of Loreto is a modern copy of the original destroyed in a fire in 1921. Despite the milling crowds there is a very tranquil atmosphere pervading the church and one can't help being overcome by a feeling of reverence before the grandeur and exquisite beauty of the interiors, especially the altar and the intricately carved marble house of the Madonna.
Macerata
En route to Fiastra in Sibillini mountains
It was night when we reached, Macerata, a major town of the Marche region. We did however manage a glimpse under moonlight of the 7,000 seater Sferisterio, a monster of a neoclassical arena used for the annual open air opera festival. And even in moonlight it was an awe-inspiring sight. The arena was erected by private subscription in the 1820s and was originally built as a football stadium. Macerata was almost entirely built between the 16th century and 19th century. The two-tiered arcades of the Loggia dei Mercanti on Central Piazza della Libertia in Renaissance style is the most striking piece of architecture of this town, which has emerged as one of the most prosperous centres in the region. However, it was the view of Macerata from the bell tower of the church in the main square, twinkling like a fairytale town, which has left a lasting impression and the wish to visit not only Macerata but explore the entire Le Marche region at a more leisurely pace.
Wining And Dining In Le Marche
As one travels through the Marche region into the town of Ascoli Piceno, you come across wines which are classics. The local wine's popularity dates back to the Roman era. It is made from the creeping vines that are seen in this area. The famed white wine, Faleriano dei colli Ascolani, and the reds Rosso Piceno and Rosso Piceno Superiore are the prized possessions of this region. The other popular wine is the very unconventional Vino Cotto (boiled or cooked wine). This is a very sweet wine ideally had by dipping a biscotti in it. It is a custom to fill a wooden barrel with Vino Cotto at the birth of a son and then drink it only on the boy's wedding day.
The cheeses of the Marche region are quite unusual from the usual Italian types. Made from sheep's milk the wine cheese called Ubriacone Verccia is a delicious heady one. The chestnut cheese called Nocello is so named because it is kept between chestnut leaves for a year before it is eaten. The third interesting cheese is Pecorino, a spicy cheese which is sold for just a month. It has a sharp rare taste which is derived from its particular aging, as it is placed in casks layered with walnut leaves. All cheeses are eaten with bread and a spread of lime or blackberry honey.
Starters like Crostone con Fegatini, which is fried bread with chicken livers, is a delicious beginning.
Roast duck, rabbit, chicken, pig's trotters cooked in wine with olives, and garlic are part of the main course.
Pasta, a must in Italy, is a little different in the Marche region as it is served with a meatless truffled sauce. The pasta dishes, mainly made of egg pasta such as Vincisgrassi, is the local version of lasagna.
Cold meats include salami, ham and the famous liver sausages.
The polenta of the Marche region is made with maize. The finely ground flour is cooked slowly to obtain a soft creamy polenta.
Olives and Italy are synonymous and Macerata in the Marche region has olives called Coroncina, which can resist the cold.
Fish is part of the diet here and in San Ginesio it is cooked to a stringy chewy consistency with a light sauce.
One of the popular desserts is Funghetti, a sweet made of flour, egg white, sugar and aniseed which hardens and becomes crunchy.
Food for vegetarians and non-vegetarians is wide and varied in the Marche region along with fresh vegetables and fruits which make great salads. - Meher Castelino
Fact File
Getting There
Alitalia has direct daily flights to Milan from Mumbai and Delhi. From Milan it is a one-hour flight to Ancona, the major port city of the region. Rome is three hours drive from Ancona. The no frills airline Ryan Air flies daily from London to Ancona. Bologna airport (two to three hours drive from Ancona) is also another option with British Airways, Alitalia and Easy Jet offering daily flights from London.
Getting Around
By Rail: Ferrovie dello Stato (FS), the Italian State Railways, has two main lines in the Marche - the coastal Milan-Bari line that links up most of the seaside resorts and the trans-Italy Ancona-Rome line that joins up a few larger towns in the central part of the region.
By Car: It is a key to discovering the region and if you can't get your own, hiring a vehicle is a very good idea. Metered taxis are available in most larger towns though like most of Europe they are expensive. For long journeys in the countryside decide the price beforehand.
By Bus: Much of rural Marche has a good network of private bus service with comfortable modern coaches though the fares are more expensive than trains. Time tables and routes are available from tourist information offices or local town halls.
Clothing
Lightweight clothing is essential in high summer and you require a good sweater or jersey plus a raincoat in the spring and autumn. Winters are very cold so pack a lot of woollens. Summer (June-August) is the best season and is also the peak tourist season in towns and resorts along the Adriatic coastline. Currency: Euro
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Le Marche of quality by Kylie Walker - The Sydney Morning Herald

There is still an affordable part of Italy that ticks all the boxes, reports Jessie Hewitson Tuscany may be the stuff of dreams for many Britons who want to buy a home abroad, but its steep prices mean owning a property there is hard to make a reality. Move a little to the east, however, and it's a different story. Le Marche (pronounced Markay), on the east coast of Italy, just next to Umbria, is an area that has largely managed to remain a secret. And property prices reflect this: they are 40 per cent less than in Tuscany or Umbria, according to Jane Smith, at magicmarche.com, and other agents in the area. For a three-bed country house prices go up, thought not massively, starting at a still-modest £80,000 for a property that 'needs work' and going up to £200,000 for a fully renovated four-bedroom home with land. In many ways, Le Marche is a more attractive prospect than land-locked Umbria. It has 112 miles of coastline, gorgeous beaches and two airports to choose from " Ancona and Pescara " which are serviced by Ryanair, meaning travelling there is easy on the wallet. And wherever you are in Le Marche, the journey to an airport should not take more than 40 minutes. Travelling to Umbria, however, is more awkward most people fly into Rome, and then face a long car journey. The scenery in Le Marche is easy on the eye as in Umbria or Tuscany, with undulating hills, the coast on the east and mountains on the west. In between lay sun-soaked valleys with hill-top villages looking towards the sea or the mountains. And at the end of summer you can look forward to the skiing season with ski slopes and alpine walks in the Sibillini Mountains in Le Marche, or the Grand Sasso mountains on the Abruzzo border. Both are less than an hour away. For those looking for quieter, more authentically Italian lifestyle - free from Britons living abroad and American tourists - Le Marche is the place to be. Jane Smith says: "You don't get the same amount of tourists that you get in Tuscany, plus non-Italians haven't started buying in the area in any great numbers, as the market is in its infancy. Go to the beaches and you'll find them populated by Italians, many coming down from Milan. The type of person who would best suit the area is someone who can't think of anything worse than jostling with masses of tourists at the market'. It's best to start a house hunt in southern Le Marche as prices there are cheaper than in the north. Gabriele Mircoli, an Italian who worked in London as a financial adviser for 20 years, now runs a property consultancy based in Le Marche and suggests the Macerata and Ascoli Piceno areas. "They are two areas of fantastic opportunity. The long-term investment potential is excellent, as there is a good chance of growth in house prices. There is also a healthy rentals market, so it would make sense to consider letting out any properties when they are not occupied, either in the summer or ski season.' Mr Mircoli also acts as a property finder for foreign investors, translator and middleman for local builders and lawyers. He adds "You don't have the infrastructure in place that you have in Tuscany, which is why Tuscany is almost double the price. You do have to put the work in - it's difficult to find builders who speak English, or to find a managing agent who can look after the pool, though things are starting to change and there is help at hand. It's worth it, though, as while Tuscany is a well-matured market, Marche still has very good opportunities for homebuyers. Plus the seaside is prettier.' WE MOVED TO THE REAL ITALY' Kenny and Adele Sinclair moved from Glasgow to Le Marche last April with their sons, Cameron-James, seven and Struen, four. The family bought a six bedroom house with a huge garden for £226,000 in the southern village of Rubbianello. Mr Sinclair, 42, runs an outdoor media contracting company, CJC Media, and commutes from his home in Le Marche to his office in London twice a month. The journey takes four hours, including a two-hour flight, but thanks to cheap air fares with Ryanair, it isn't expensive. Mrs Sinclair, 38, says: "We felt that Tuscany had been spoilt by an influx of British people. We didn't want to be surrounded by expats and wanted somewhere truly Italian. Plus we were able to get much more for our money here.' The couple didn't speak Italian before moving, but "quickly picked it up thanks to our wonderful neighbours'. Mrs Sinclair adds: "We've more space for the children, a big garden where we grow vegetables, and overall there's less stress here. Our neighbours have been more welcoming than I could ever have dreamt'.
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The Next Tuscany by Anthea Masey - The EVENING STANDARD

Le Marche )pronounced markay) is an Italian secret. A region of softly rolling hills, scattered with attractively walled hill towns, this still largely agricultural area is often described as the "real Italy". Le Marche, which translates into English as The Marches, is on the eastern side of central Italy between the Apennine mountains and the Adriatic Sea. It feels a world away from those parts of neighbouring Tuscany that holidaying Britains have turned into a sunny version of the Surrey Hills.
From the magnificence of the Ducal Palace at Urbino to the clear waters of Lake Fiastra, from the open0air opera festival in Macerata to the Roman amphitheatre at Urbisaglia and the dramatic rocky coves and cliffs of the Conero peninsular near Ancona, Le Marche remains untouched by mass tourism, which is surprising for a region that offers the visitor such a rich mix of culture, history, fine architecture, beautiful countryside and long, sandy beaches.
The region has a passion for food, too. From spring through to autumn almost every country village and town will at some point celebrate its local speciality. Le Marche is particularly famous for its pecorino sheep's milk cheese and truffles, but there are festivals celebrating everything from snails to polenta, stuffed flat bread to wild boar and rabbit roasted with fennel.
The 110 miles of coast on the Adriatic has a uniquely Italian feel. Busy seasside towns such as Gabicce Mare, Pesaro, Senigallia and San Benedetto del Tronto are full of old-fashioned hotels much loved by Italians who have come on holiday here for years. In the busy summer months, the beach-side restaurants are brimming over with parties of extended Italian families and their friends.
Le Marche also has a reputation for mild eccentricity, in many of the hill towns no excuse is missed for dressing up in medieval clothes. In Ascoli Piceno, which has one of the most beautiful squares in Italy - Piazza del Popolo - there is an annual medieval jousting contest, and in Mondavio they dress up to chase wild boars through the streets. Maddest of all is the pallio della rana in Fermignano, a race with wheelbarrows full of frogs on the first Sunday after Easter.
Pam and David Bates opened their B&B and restaurant, Villa Sibillini, in February 2003 and have never regretted their move to Le Marche. The house they bought, near the pretty walled hill village of San Ginesio, close to Macerata, has five en-suite letting rooms. "It cost us £42,000 and when we were looking in 2001 we were shown at least three houses under £50,000. Prices have risen since then, but there are still plenty of bargains to be had", says Pam.
In fact Pam and David, and their daughter, Georgina now operate a free advice service for English house buyers. "A lot of people who stay with us are either house-hunting or doing up properties nearby. We find them builders, plumbers and roofers and tell them where to go for the best furniture deals", explains Pam.
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It looks like heaven - and tastes like it too by William Black - The Independent

From ducal splendour to luscious pasta dishes, the eastern region of Le Marche leaves the food writer and Italy lover William Black spoilt for choice Some corners of Italy are so breathtakingly beautiful you almost have to slap yourself to remember that you are on the same planet as Basildon - and the central province of Le Marche is one of them.
Le Marche used to be one of those little-known corners of Italy that overly romantic writers with a deep and uncontrollable passion for Italy - writers such as myself - would "discover". But since being dubbed, along with Puglia, and Umbria, "the new Tuscany", good travelling citizens (and Volvo dealerships) have begun to satisfy a growing curiosity about this province on the eastern side of Italy, sandwiched between mountainous Abruzzo to the south, radical Romagna to the north, and to the west ... yes it even has Tuscan contiguity. It is a region that, in the words of the obese French tyre man, the once respected rubber gastronome, is well worth the detour.
I was slapping myself particularly hard recently while drifting in an almost narcotic haze in my own private Marche mille miglia - stunned and hugely uplifted by the sheer vitality of it all. There were crusty old peasants up in the Sibelline Hills, an urban buzz and fabulous stoccafisso (wind-dried cod) in Ancona, rolling landscapes, a precarious hill-top castle at San Leo, plus a stream of captivating towns: Jesi, Fermo, Macerata and Ascoli Piceno to name but a few. For those in need of religious inspiration, a visit to Loreto is an absolute must. Devoted pilgrim or not, this is the site of the Santa Casa, the Holy House where Jesus once lived - no not here in Loreto, but in Nazareth, the house being kindly transported by angels in an age long before Chinook helicopters.
And if you prefer to people-watch, or café-sit, many Italians will tell you that the Marchigiani have a particular attraction - great beauty and an air of what might almost be called calmness. They are gentle Italians. Temper this if you will with the election every September of the President of the Club dei Brutti (the Club of the Ugly) in the Marche village of Piobbico, where self-professed ugly club organiser Telesforo Iacobelli says proudly: "Yes, I'm ugly. I have a small snubby nose. But if you ask me, the uglier the better!" If ugliness is not your thing, then get yourself to the utterly exquisite town of Urbino in northern Marche. The 15th-century glory of Urbino is down to Federico da Montefeltro (1422-1482), its one-time Duke. He was an exceptional, almost archetypal Renaissance man, a mercenary or condottiere of refined tastes, enormous power, and a famously aquiline, indeed broken, nose. His haughty, almost supercilious look was captured by Piero della Francesca in 1472, and can be seen in Florence's Uffizi gallery.
The marvellous Ducal Palace in Urbino was built on his orders in 1473, and although it is not as well endowed as it once was - its library has been shipped off to the Vatican in its entirety - it is still a brilliant piece of Renaissance architecture.
The Duke was considered to have been a relatively benign ruler, and an immensely cultured man. Great artists passed by. Piero della Francesca, Paolo Uccello, Pisanello, and the great Raphael was born in Urbino in 1483. His house, the Casa natale di Raffaello, still stands and can be visited. But it is the Ducal Palace that takes the breath away.
Urbino is more than just a story of the exquisite taste of one man, for it reminds us that Italy has been moulded by the machinations and fluctuating fortunes of immensely powerful families: the Medicis, the Borgias, the Gonzagas, the Este, the Sforza, all of whom created their own fiefdoms - city states that became one of the basic social structures of what we now know as Italy, a country that, it is so easy to forget, was only united in 1871. City states and republics are part of the Italian soul. They help explain, I think, the Italian's disdain, and distrust for a centralised state, and their tendency to play the subtle game of campanilismo, a word that literally means that you are loyal to the sound of your own church bells.
As I left the Ducal Palace that winter afternoon, the fog had thickened, and it rolled ominously through the narrow streets. It was absolutely glorious. There was hardly a soul around. I half-expected to hear the mad crashing of a horse rushing through the cobbled square, with a red-velvet clad Renaissance rider careering through the streets, but sadly, the only people who passed by were the carabinieri. If atmosphere titillates your soul, then Urbino is the place for you.
The body does well by Le Marche too. It is home to one of my favourite places to eat on the planet - the Trattoria da Rosa in the backstreets of Macerata, an unpretentious but lovely, relaxed hill town with the usual sprinkling of clothes shops and perfumeries. Da Rosa is also unpretentious, but what really makes the place work for me is that rare thing, a menu that eats as well as it sounds, and one that entirely reflects the region. They know about smiling too, which always helps.
You may even be lucky enough to stumble across Le Marche's great culinary extravagance, a luscious layered pasta dish called Vincisgrassi, dotted with truffles, and covered with a rich meat ragu and béchamel sauce. Its name is at the centre of one of those interminable culinary debates. Was it named after an Austrian general, Windschgratz, who in 1799 had the dish dedicated to him during a respite from slaughter in Ancona? Or can it be, as the Maceratese convincingly suggest, a name derived from a dish called princisgrassi that was recorded in 1781 by a local author, Antonio Nebbia? Another theory says that it is a corruption of local tagliatelle called by the Maceratese, pincigrassi. The debate rages on.
Driving southwards to Ascoli Piceno, a town as famous for stuffing olives as for its beautiful central piazza, I stopped at a curiously named village called Monte Vidon Combatte, on the recommendation of a keen local gastronome. When my pancetta stocks run low, I tend to plot and plan a lightning trip to Italy to fill those vacant spaces in the fridge. Here I was told to look for a small shop run by the Passamonti family, who produce hams, a superb lightly smoked salami called ciauscolo, as well as the most exquisite guanciale, or pig's jowl.
Guanciale is not only a tastier cut than the cured pork belly, or pancetta, that is now so widely available, but for all of those who are just gagging to make a really authentic spaghetti all'amatriciana, it is guanciale that you need.
Although much of the Marche coast is dead and dull at this time of year, there are places worth exploring. Senigallia is a beautiful town, with a profoundly overpriced and well-respected restaurant, La Madonnina del Pescatore; you might be better off, and heavier in the wallet, at Al Cuoco di Bordo. Fano is worth a wander too. Meanwhile, the port of Ancona may not be the prettiest - it is busy, and dusty - but it is a great place to eat that most enigmatic of Italian culinary creations, stoccafisso - or wind-dried cod. It was a stalwart of international trade, shipped down with fur and amber from Scandinavia since the Middle Ages.
Then there are Emanuela Forlini's onions. I'd never heard of them the first time I visited Le Marche, which is a pity, for if I had I might well have been better prepared for the biting winter cold. Emanuela lives in Urbania, one among hundreds of ravishing Marchegianan towns, and is the last known practitioner of the dark art of onion weather forecasting. Every New Year's Day, she selects 12 onions, one for each month of the year, sprinkles them with salt, and then, come 24 January, looks at them closely, and with copious amounts of ancestral wisdom, delivers her meteorological verdict.
And so it is that I can divulge that the weather in Le Marche for 2005 will mostly be variable. Apart from September and October that is, when there will be, Emanuela informs us, bel tempo. Ah, the wisdom of Le Marche!
William Black's most recent book is 'Al Dente - the Adventures of a Gastronome in Italy', published by Corgi at £7.99
GIVE ME THE FACTS
How to get there
Ryanair (0871 246 0000; www.ryanair.com flies from London Stansted to Ancona from £50 return.
source: http://travel.independent.co.uk
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Mentor for Italy Peter Greene says the marchigiani possess... - Telegraph

Italy is proving an attractive place for Britons starting up a business. Report by Sarah Bridge in Florence
THIS YEAR more than 2.5m British holidaymakers will head for Italy. The attractions of its warm climate, history, designer shops and cuisine make Italy one of the most popular holiday destinations.
But for a growing number of Britons it is no longer enough to spend two weeks a year living La Dolce Vita. They are making the break for good, leaving homes and careers in Britain to forge new lives in Italy. And unlike Spain, which is seen as a retirement destination, people are moving to Italy to set up businesses of their own.
The Italian Chamber of Commerce in Britain is a first point of call for many people looking to live and work in Italy. Christian Fianco, director of cross-border investments, said the number of people looking to start their own business had soared over the past few years.
"There has been a huge increase in the number of people contacting us," he said. "Interest has been fuelled by relocation programmes on television. They give people a positive perception of Italy and encourage them to go for it." Pam and David Bates from Chandlers Ford, Hampshire, decided to launch their own bed-and-breakfast business in Italy in 2001 while they were looking for a holiday home to buy.
"We both had horrible jobs and decided there was more to life," said Pam, 51. They found a farmhouse overlooking the Sibillini mountains in central Italy and put in an offer. Then, 18 months later, after they had sold their home in Britain and taken out a small mortgage in Italy to fund renovations, Villa Sibillini opened for business.
Despite having a background in hotel and events management, it was still a "matter of trial and error" at the start, said Pam. "We were hanging on by our fingertips financially."
Carrying out a lot of the renovation work themselves, they turned the farmhouse into a three-storey eight-bedroom property. Thanks to Pam's marketing nous and an appearance on the Channel 4 programme A Place in Italy, the business is starting to break even.
"The lifestyle is so much better here," said Pam. "People work to live, not live to work, and we've been adopted into the local community." The only problem, she said, was that Italians could be too helpful. "They want to help you as much as possible so they will say they can do something even when they can't. But we have a very good English-speaking accountant who has been great."
David Fryer, 41, from Brighton, started a yacht-painting company in February in Viareggio, Tuscany, having initially come out to work for a friend. His yard, which handles luxury yachts worth up to £50m, is doubling its workforce as contracts come in.
"Setting up the company meant a never-ending pile of paperwork and a huge amount of red tape and tax," said Fryer, "which means we have to take on more business than in Britain just to stay afloat."
But Fryer, who employed a consultant to help him incorporate the company, Kano, said he wouldn't go back. "Life in Britain is in black and white; here, it's in colour."
According to Fianco, the latest trend is agritourism, in which people offer local activities such as wine-making, cookery and language courses rather than just bed and breakfast. "We have been receiving more and more inquiries from people who want to set up agritourism businesses," he said. "It's very good for the local region as it provides opportunities for everyone."
Debby and Thomas Manz from Swavesey, near Cambridge, are a typical example. They moved to Italy a year ago with their three young children, Dominik, Issy and Lara, having become fed up with the rat race at home. Debby, 37, a teacher, and Thomas, 38, a hotel and catering manager, decided to run their own bed and breakfast and turned to the neighbouring area of Le Marche rather than pricey Tuscany. Having sold their four-bedroom house "with a postage-stamp garden" in Swavesey for £200,000, they bought a four-storey farmhouse with 17 acres and its own ruin, for the same price, and quickly raised more money by selling off some of the land. Casa Montalto is now open for business and, thanks to advertising on a holiday property portal, it is fully booked up for the summer months. Debby said: "We want to get people involved in local activities such as grape-picking and regional cooking. We are so proud of what we have achieved and the children love it here."
Spotting a gap in the market is also a good way to start a business in Italy, as Christine Cartey discovered. Having worked in the finance sector in the Channel Islands, she moved with her husband to teach English in Arezzo, 50 miles southeast of Florence. Her Italian neighbours had just started letting out their property but were having trouble understanding what holidaymakers wanted from the villa, so Christine acted as an informal link between hosts and guests. Both sides were so pleased with the result that she was recommended to other people and, she said, "business snowballed from there". The couple have set up their own website, italiapropertymanagement.com, and have been approached by local estate agents to help look after people hunting for properties in the area. It is early days and the amount of money coming in is still small, but Christine is hoping they will be able to make enough to fund the renovation of their own property.
If you are setting up your own business in Italy, one of the first steps is to find your local camera di commercio (chamber of commerce) to provide information on how to do it. The Italian Chamber of Commerce in London can direct you to your local branch, as well as recommend regional organisations such as ITP (Invest in Turin and Piedmont) which has been set up to attract investment into the region.
You will also need to register at the chamber of commerce to obtain a certificato di iscrizione della camera di commercio - a certificate of registration at the chamber of commerce. But the most important thing to do, said Fryer, is to build up personal contacts. "If you have a good relationship with someone, you are like family and things will get done quickly - if you don't, things will take for ever."
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Is Le Marche the Next Tuscany? by Christofer Solomon - The New York Times

BRING you a taste of my verdicchio," says our host as my friend Laurie and I sit down to dinner beside a murmuring fire. We're in the timber-and-stone dining room of a 250-year-old farmhouse whose owners, Mario and Mara Boria have converted into a casual, eight-room agriturismo outside the small Italian town of Castelraimondo. Mario brings a liter of a pale white wine, and places it on the table, beaming.
He's got reason to smile: the dry, apricot-scented verdicchio is pressed from grapes that grew just beyond the front door, on land that his family has worked for a good chunk of a millennium here in the hills of Le Marche, a province in east-central Italy with rolling vineyards and golden grain fields topped by crumbling castles. The verdicchio pairs well with Mara's homemade tagliatelle and fresh lamb from the small flock out back. The main course of roast chicken is so fresh I'm pretty sure I spotted our meal pecking around the place just yesterday.
In the small dining room, there are a dozen of us, including three freelance sheep-shearers from the Falkland Islands and New Zealand. We linger over dinner for hours with them and with Mario, hearing stories of sheep-shearing and of life in this region, as the verdicchio is drained, the hearth's fire sinks to embers and the night hangs its shadows in the corners of the farmhouse where Mario was born.
The next morning, he gives us a tour of his modest farm, with its panoramic views across the Potenza and Esino River valleys, its sheep mowing through the sweet grass. A shadow moves at the end of a row of grapevines. It's Mario's 84-year-old father, Enrico, bending the grape vines to prepare them to bear the weight of the coming fruit.
Beyond him lies a scruffy piece of land that no plow has turned. My threadbare Italian snags the word "tartufo." Then I see Mario's smile, and understand: It's the family's black truffle patch.
The tableau - white sheep, undulating ridges, an old man working in the green-scented April sunshine - reminds me of the guest from Bologna who told us at dinner last night that he'd come to Le Marche (pronounced lay MAHR-kay) to see the authentic Italy that's vanishing from other parts of his homeland. When I last saw him this morning, he and his friends were debating whether to load a wheel of formaggio the diameter of a dinner plate, and made from Mario's sheep's milk, in the back of their Mercedes.
This is what Tuscany must have felt like 10 or 20 years ago, before it was discovered by tour groups and their omnipresent buses - carrying thousands upon thousands of travelers who flock there each year to try to recreate the pleasures of "Under the Tuscan Sun." One Tuscany wine-growing area is so crowded with British expatriates and second-home owners that that country's press calls it Chiantishire. In short, Tuscany, for all its undeniable charms, is an increasingly challenging place to have an intimate encounter with true Italy.
Seasoned travelers have begun casting about elsewhere for that authentic experience. In the last two years, the British, those shock troops of Italian tourism, have been filling cheap Ryanair flights to a revived Puglia, Italy's sun-bleached stiletto heel. Some observers have anointed a cleaned-up, post-Mafia Sicily the Next Big Thing. But others are heading to the calf of Italy's boot, to Le Marche, a small, diverse province rising from the Adriatic Sea to the 6,000-foot peaks of the Apennines. In between lies a Tuscan-like rumple of lavender fields, sunflower fields and vineyards spread across hills that hump off toward every horizon like a patchwork quilt on an unmade bed. In 2003, according to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, Le Marche had just 7 percent as many visits by foreigners as Tuscany.
What do those fewer travelers find there?
"Italian-ness," says Michael Eldridge, a British photographer and painter who fled what he calls the increasingly theme park feel of Tuscany with his Italian wife nearly five years ago, and converted an old convent in the Sibylline Mountains in the Marches, as the name is rendered in English. He speaks fondly of the region's ancient towns that cap seemingly every hilltop here - towns full of twisty streets but often empty of tourist buses and English accents.
He also loves the people, saying ,"They're kind and they're gentle and they're modest and they're slow."
Slow?
"They're a bit slow in that they'll spend a half a day talking to you," he explains. "The people from northern Italy would probably say they're a bit medieval here."
After a weeklong visit last month I, too, have found in Le Marche the vera Italia that both the Briton and the Bolognese spoke of - a place where travelers can still feel a genuine sense of discovery and quiet pleasures as they meander back roads and walk on cobbles that haven't yet been polished by the soles of a million tourists.
THE bells peal at 6:08 p.m. on a Tuesday in April. We are standing under the lime trees of the vacant Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II in Cingoli, a town that dates back to the third century B.C. and was built of stone on a hill about 25 miles southwest of Ancona in the heart of Le Marche. I grope around the dusty back shelf of my Catholic upbringing, trying to find the reason.
"Scusi," Laurie says, accosting a surprised Marchigiano with our pidgin of half-remembered Italian, half-forgotten Spanish and occasional charades gestures. "Papa nuova?"
Si. The bells peal for the new pope.
A woman who speaks English passes by and asks if we'd like to see the Lorenzo Lotto painting in the church. She leads us to the town's art gallery and leaves us before a man in his 60's who has great tuffets of black hair erupting from his ears. He looks us over grimly from behind his desk, then wraps an overcoat and scarf against his head cold, leads us down Cingoli's rain-varnished cobbles and unlocks a several-hundred-year-old church - San Domenico - that's not in my guidebook.
For the next half-hour, the three of us stand alone in the chilly apse as the curator waves his arms, explaining the history and artistic techniques behind Lotto's 1539 painting "Madonna of the Rosary," which hangs behind the altar. As he gestures, the clouds of grumpiness dissipate. His nose dries up. He doesn't speak a syllable of English, but we understand his enthusiasm alone, and what we don't comprehend doesn't matter: It's another indelible Marche moment in a town I'd never heard of two weeks previous, before a painting I'd never heard of 30 minutes earlier.
Equally memorable is the curator's response when I ask him if he's excited to hear about the new pope. He grimaces - those great black tufts in his ears suddenly resembling the smoke that preceded the white from the Sistine Chapel's flue that morning - and he says something like, "Le Marche has never been so good since the papacy exerted its control here." By my accounting, his grudge is more than 400 years old.
This region has long sat askew to the rest of Italy, with an independence bred in the marrow. Even the name, given in the 10th century after the German word for a border area, underscores Le Marche's fringe position. The province eventually gained a reputation as an ungovernable constellation of willful municipalities that operated only nominally under papal control.
Perhaps because no one state could marshal its forces, history didn't linger here to stir up lots of trouble. "Better a corpse in the house than a man from Le Marche at the door," goes an old Italian saying, from the time when its men served as papal tax collectors. Mostly, though, the province's fate has been to be ignored more than maligned.
It is this Italy, the one alien even to many of its countrymen, that I look for. We work our way south by rental car from Urbino, that acme of Renaissance towns, through the hilly wine-and-olive-oil country of the province's midriff, and make a side trip to the handsome city of Ascoli Piceno in the far south.
Our itinerary is purposefully loose, guided only by two pledges. The first: Stay away from Le Marche's 110 miles of coastline. Though the seaside towns of Pesaro in the north and San Benedetto del Tronto in the south are said to hold charm, much of the coast has been developed in recent decades and is unappealing, and crowded in midsummer to boot. Seekers of a Tuscany-like experience will find the region's charm rises in almost inverse proportion to the distance from salt water.
The second rule: Stay off the nation's freeways when possible and stick to the curvy side roads. Unknown Italy isn't found between toll booths.
Given these self-imposed mandates, the sight of tourist buses idling in the parking lots at Urbino isn't comforting. But then, Urbino is the region's best-known city, and certainly its classiest, so one does have to acquiesce to sharing the streets with a certain amount of company.
In the 15th century, the enlightened Duke Federico of Montefeltro, made wealthy by years of savvy mercenary work, refashioned this windy hilltop into an early model of the quintessential Renaissance town. His palace would set the bar for future Renaissance palazzi - modest on the outside, elegant but human-sized on the inside. The duke filled his court with some of the best painters and thinkers of his day, including the father of the painter Raphael.
His son walked the same steep cobbled streets that we walk, past buildings of flesh-colored brick and terra cotta roofs. We wander through the palace, which holds the region's finest art museum, including works like Raphael's "The Mute." Outside, the cafe tables of the Piazza della Repubblica are filled with students from the university.
After dark, the crooked streets empty and we stroll alone down 500-year-old lanes where orange lamps throw light across the orange brick. Some are so narrow I can reach out and touch both walls. The shadows become characters.
The duke's reign was a time of great security and benevolence, but at night it's hard to walk through this Shakespearean set of a town and not feel that you are about to witness the small beginning of some great drama: a purloined letter, a scuffle between feuding clans. In front of the palazzo, a clot of college boys talks and jokes. I half expect to hear names like Mercutio or Benvolio.
Blame dinner for these off-the-leash imaginings. I hadn't expected from Le Marche such a distinct and proud regional cuisine, or such wheelbarrow-loads of it. There are, of course, the Italian staples like cheese - a sharp formaggio di fossa that the locals wall up in limestone holes to age, and the casciotta d'Urbino so craved by Michelangelo that he bought up farms to ensure himself an unbroken supply of the stuff, according to my Touring Club of Italy guide to the region.
Away from the coast, where seafood prevails, of course, this region's cuisine is staggeringly meat-based. Lamb, rabbit, swine - the Marchigiani eat more flesh per capita than any of their countrymen, according to the region's tourist office. Pigs are the star of the country kitchen, though. There is pancetta and prosciutto, and several dishes made from porcine parts best left unmentioned. And every overflowing plate of antipasti arrives with a soft salami that's as spreadable as warmed butter and that has forever turned me against those rock-hard cylinders sold in American supermarkets.
One day at noon, we stop at a table in the square where a man in a suitably filthy apron stands before his truck and shaves a pile of his home-smoked pork onto waxed paper with a knife. We buy rolls and mineral water at one shop, cheese at another, then walk to where the Albornoz Fort sits like an old brick crown atop Urbino. We sit in the grass and eat with Raphael in mind, sharing his view of the pink roofs and green hills.
From Urbino, we spend several days driving a rough circle through the agricultural center of Le Marche - often in second gear, on roads that at times seemed too pinched to accommodate even a center line. We pass green fields of durum soon to turn golden, for this is Italy's macaroni bowl, home to much grain production. These hills have been cultivated hard for millenniums, and sometimes power lines and roads zipper across them. But nonetheless there is a gentleness to the landscape, and a tranquillity in the pattern of rectangles and squares
Every six or eight miles, the fields crest and another impossibly picturesque medieval hill town appears in a shaft of Annunciation light, its brick ramparts now only under siege by olive trees, its palisades now only defended by dandelions: Serra de' Conti. Cupramontana. Staffolo. Ostra.
Wandering through these towns, barely mentioned in any guidebook, becomes a highlight of the trip, with the midmorning torpor of their tidy town squares, the proud butcher shops hung with homemade salami, the deliciously crooked little streets that lead nowhere that we're headed - and so we take them. In every town, matrons in headscarves and support hose and cardigans waddle up the cobbles with grocery bags, as if they're leaving central casting instead of the negozio di alimentari. Surprised by visitors, they return our smiles with smiles, and a "Salve!"
Walking in these towns, my clipped American gait soon slows to medieval time. I start to notice things. Call them sensory postcards: the scrape of knife and fork across a plate behind a window of Marchigiani lace during afternoon riposo. The labored lift of a pigeon in an empty piazza where a pensioner dozes at a cafe over his glass of prosecco. Often, Laurie stops before a house that has never known a plumb line and runs her hand down a wooden door that might be 400 years old.
If each hill town - its church and its square and its old women - is a little different than the last, the distinctions soon blur like the swallows that race the car to the next town. Was it Serra San Quirico where residents built their homes atop the city walls? Did Cingoli have the balcony-like views over the countryside? We give up and let the countryside wash over us.
Poking around the vineyards outside of the towns yields as many pleasant encounters. Once mass-produced plonk, the green-tinged verdicchio has improved hugely in the last decade or so. Our approach to each cantina, or wine cellar, is as casual as our approach to the towns: If we see a sign and are in the mood, we swerve and trust serendipity. Sometimes the signs lead to tasting rooms with a few stools and a statue of the Madonna over the entrance, and where the winemakers themselves are behind the corkscrew.
One afternoon when I'm on a quest to try an unusual red wine that's only produced in a small area of Le Marche around the village of Morro d'Alba, we follow a sign to the gate of a country house. A cat sleeps on the roof of a car. A man appears, hauling a giant wicker-covered jug of wine.
"Bottiglie?" I ask. Bottles? He waves us inside.
For the next 40 minutes, the slightly paunchy, jovial winemaking brothers Vittorio and Mirko Badiali are our best friends. I warn them at the start that we can only buy a few bottles, and that they needn't take much time with us. They wave me off, as if they've been waiting all day for our arrival.
One fires up the espresso machine. The other pops the cork on two bottles of the quarry: lacrima di Morro d'Alba (the tears of Morro d'Alba), an unusual red that's both dry and fruity.
The brothers speak no English. This does not deter them from telling us about the vineyard surrounding the house, which their father started decades ago. They tell us about the lacrima, which may get its name because the grapes can "weep" juice when they remain on the vine two weeks longer than the usual harvest - or because people weep when all the wine's gone, jokes one brother, rubbing the corner of his eye.
When we ask about the obstacles to exporting their wine to the United States, he speaks in such an arpeggio that our tenuous pidgin of Spanish-Italian-charades utterly collapses. Instead, we both simply nod sympathetically and drink more wine than we intend to. It's 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and there's no bucket to spit into.
We buy three bottles from the brothers Badiali, shake hands genuinely and head down their gravel road toward Le Marche's next surprise. At every turn in the road, the bottles of tears clink pleasantly in the back seat.
Visitor Information
Le Marche, or the Marches, has its feet in the Adriatic Sea and its head in the 6,000-foot peaks of central Italy's Apennines, on the border of Tuscany and Umbria. Between beach and border is a land that is almost 90 percent hills and mountains, much of it pleasant hill-and-dale agricultural land where church steeples crown every high point. Even in summer, temperatures can be cool in the higher places. But expect hot temperatures in midsummer near the crowded beaches.
GETTING THERE
Flying to Le Marche has grown somewhat easier in the last few years. Falconara airport in Ancona is now served by Alitalia (from Rome and Milan), (800) 223-5730, www.alitalia.com, and Ryanair (from London), www.ryanair.com/site/EN/, among others. Ryanair also flies from London and Germany to Saga airport in Pescara, about 85 miles south of Ancona in Abruzzo, the next province to the south, which can be used by those who want to explore the southern Marches.
Other small carriers also fly between Pescara and Rome, Milan and Paris. But the smaller airlines don't generally depart for Le Marche from the airport used for arrivals from the United States. For example, a round-trip ticket to London was recently $570 on British Airways, and a connection to Ancona was just $115 round trip on Ryanair. But the international flight arrives at Heathrow Airport, while the Ryanair flight leaves from Stansted Airport. A National Express bus, www.nationalexpress.co.uk, from Heathrow to Stansted costs $39 at $1.91 to the pound), or $49.50 round trip.
To explore Le Marche, a rental car and a very good road atlas are mandatory; cars can be rented in Ancona and Pescara. Rental cars aren't cheap in Europe; my compact diesel, from Europcar, www.europcar.com, cost $290 in April.
WHERE TO STAY
Summer is high season, even in Le Marche, so it's best to make reservations as early as possible. But this is also the Italian countryside, and much of the region shuts down in August as innkeepers and shopkeepers go on vacation.
Guests at Il Giardino degli Ulivi, Località Castelsantangelo, Castelraimondo, (39-0737) 642-121, www.ilgiardinodegliulivi.com, can still run their hands across beams cut in the 12th century when this inn in the west-central Marches was first built as a guard tower. Father and daughter architects renovated the place extensively in the 1980's to create an eight-room agriturismo inn that oozes history and romance. The best room has a large window that overlooks the Potenza Valley. Downstairs, the rock-walled dining room (with its own, very skilled chef) has two fireplaces and features surprises like homemade marmalade and honey from acacia bushes on the property; four-course dinners are $46 a person, without wine, at $1.32 to the euro. Such atmosphere and amenities do raise the ante, however: Doubles are $105 to $160, including an ample breakfast.
Just a few miles away, Il Casato, Località Vasconi 12, Castelraimondo, (39-0737) 642-077, is an agriturismo run by Mario and Mara Boria. The eight rooms are simple and comfortable, but the reasons to come are to taste Mara's cooking, to drink wine made from Mario's grapes and to feel his enthusiasm for the land his family has owned for the last 150 years. Doubles are about $72 a person in summer with dinner and breakfast.
Hotel Bonconte, Via delle Mura, 28, Urbino, (39-0722) 2463, www.viphotels.it, is a comfortable, air-conditioned establishment with 25 rooms in an old villa within the old city walls. In summer, doubles are $102 to $175, not including breakfast.
WHERE TO EAT
In Urbino, which is home to several good restaurants, Taverna degli Artisti, Via Bramante, 52, (39-0722) 2676, serves excellent traditional Marchigiani dishes like passatelli, a fresh pasta of egg, breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese ($8); or strozzapreti ("priest chokers") - chunky strips of pasta - in a cream sauce with spinach ($8). Open daily in summer.
In Ascoli Piceno, the simple Trattoria dell'Arengo, (39-0736) 254-711, Via Tornasecco, 5, just off the Piazza dell'Arengo, leaves the TV running while guests are eating. But it serves such filling and excellent antipasti selections - local salami, cheeses, stewed beans and polenta, and all for $15.50, with wine - that I never made it to the pasta course.
WHAT TO DO
Much of the pleasure of the Marches is simply wandering its towns and stumbling upon its vineyard tasting rooms, but a few places are worth scheduling a visit to see. Here are just two:
The Ducal Palace of Urbino, (39-0722) 322-625, a classic Renaissance palace with works by Raphael among others, is open Monday 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Tuesday through Sunday until 7:15 p.m. Admission, $5.25.
In Tolentino, the Basilica of San Nicola, (39-0733) 976-311, www.sannicoladatolentino.it, with its bright floor-to-ceiling cycle of early 14th-century frescoes above, and its crypt of the saint below, is stunning. Open 7 a.m. to noon and 3:30 to 7:30 p.m.; free.
GUIDES
Guidebooks on Italy usually give short shrift to the Marches. But the very detailed Heritage Guide to the Marches, published in English by the Touring Club of Italy, has detailed road and city maps of the larger towns and suggested driving tours. It can be ordered at www.touringclub.com for $16.95.
The Italian Government Tourist Board has offices in New York, (212) 245-5618; Chicago, (312) 644-0996; and Los Angeles, (310) 820-1898. The province's tourism Web site, www.le-marche.com, has lists of hotels, activities and information about the region's culture, cuisine and other topics.
CHRISTOPHER SOLOMON writes frequently about travel for The Times.
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Italy's Little Secret By Roberta Bernstein - New York Post

Here's a great write up from the New York Post - their travel writer Roberta Bernstein was absolutely amazed by the fabulous Marche Region and in a whirlwind trip, managed to cover a lot of ground.
ITALY'S LITTLE SECRET By ROBERTA BERNSTEIN
Next door to Umbria lies a region of olive groves, snowcapped peaks and Adriatic beaches - so why haven't we all been there? ROBERTA BERNSTEIN discovers Le Marche.
IF you want to get knocked over the head with a bottle of olive oil, call Le Marche, a verdant, geographically stunning region northeast of Rome, the "new"Umbria. Not that you'd be wrong. Le Marche, like Umbria and its other famous neighbor, Tuscany, is an area dotted with vineyards and stone farmhouses, a place where each bend brings the sight of another walled, medieval village spilling off a hilltop. Here you also can traverse a snow field in the morning and, hours later, be eating lunch al fresco on the sunny Adriatic coast. The problem? Its locals know that being the "new"anything could change its peaceful vibe.
Just three hours from Rome by train, the region extends from the Sibillini Mountain chain of the Apennine Range in central Italy to the sea. It was in many ways ignored by much of the modern world prior to the 1970s. (It, in turn, ignored the world; for instance, local farmers still used wooden plows and horses well into the 1960s.) Then scores of Italians and other Europeans "discovered" its coastal towns, turning them into a summer hot zone. (July-August is not the time for sun and sand here, unless you're into wall-to-wall lounge chairs.)
No matter the time of year, just 15 minutes from the water, past a smattering of unfortunate industrial zones that litter the coast, you'll be among just a handful of tourists wandering through farms, fortresses and castles, and then, further west, the where-is-everybody near-silence of the towering, scenic Apennines.
That Americans have yet to inundate this region is in part due to Italy's long history of leaving Le Marche to itself - and the fact that locals like it that way. And while its rural and historical charms are extraordinary, compared with Tuscany and Umbria, there's culturally less of note here. Pay attention, though, and you'll come across enough gem-like works to satisfy those thirsty for art. There are also an increasing number of excellent restaurants popping up, as Le Marche's chefs start to strut their stuff.
To best see the area, rent a car. Happily, the winding network of two-lane provincial roads is in excellent condition. (That is, save for the occasional mudslide in early spring. Do I know this for a fact? Yes, I do.)
Bottom line: When Italians from outside the region light up with pleasure and surprise when you tell them where you're going (as they did time and again during a recent visit), you know you're going somewhere special.
ANCIENT RUINS
I started out in Rome, driving straight to Ascoli Piceno - settled in the 9th century B.C. - the largest town in Le Marche's southern end. Its outskirts were depressing, but its historical center, built from travertine, a light-colored stone, seemed to glow. Unwind in the magical Piazza del Popolo at Le Caffè Meletti, where you can sip its famous anisette (Anisetta Meletti). From there, visit the area's well-preserved ruins.
You can lodge in town, but better yet, stay 10 minutes away in Castel di Lama at the Palm House (its Italian name is Borgo Storico Seghetti Panichi). This family-owned country mansion features a beautiful garden, a chapel with 18th-century frescoes, a pretty pool and a fitness room. While views are marred by local industry down in the valley, you'll still feel worlds away from everything (from $200; book through Cognoscenti, 44 1737 245725, c-italy.com).
UP THE COAST
The next day, inching my way north, I stopped in the coastal palm tree-lined resort of San Bendetto del Tronto. Though locals rave about its beach scene, I found it crowded and, thanks to its nearby industrial center, unattractive. I high-tailed it inland to Ripatransone, a small, fairy tale- like walled town celebrating its 1,000-year anniversary. Stop at the Museo Civico Cellini in the Palazzo Comunale and then have an espresso at the cheerful Caffe Sammagno off the piazza. Save lunch for nearby Monterubbiano where a nothing-looking trattoria, Pensione de Checco Ristorante, serves light-as-air pasta (Via Porta Marina, 3).
MEDIEVAL TIMES
The next two days were filled with exploration of the gorgeous south-central and central regions. My base was San Ginesio, another immaculate medieval village. (This one has both a convent and a surprising cosmopolitan edge.) It overlooks three valleys carpeted in sunflowers, olive groves and grapes during the summer. Eat at Terranostra, the main piazza's brightly painted pizzeria, and enjoy some local specialties (Piazza Gentili).
Worth seeing in the surrounding area is Macerata, a midsize medieval town featuring the enormous Arena Sferisterio, now famous for its outdoor opera.
THE BIG CITY
To the northeast, smack-dab in the center of the coast, is Ancona, a bustling, sprawling port founded by the Greeks in fifth century B.C.
Though a bit grimy, it has its charms. Check out the 11th-century pink-and-white Cathedral de San Ciriaco at the top of Mount Guasco, from which you'll have excellent views. At the port visit Mole Vanvitelliana, built in the early 1700s. It served as a quarantine station and now features exhibitions.
This is also the place for shopping - the region's trendiest stores are here on Corso Garibaldi - and night life. For cocktails, try the hopping Bar Rosa off Piazza Roma, also known for its gelati.
NATURAL BEAUTY
Near Ancona lies the Conero Riviera. Part of Conero National Park, it's perhaps the region's prettiest stretch of coastline. A limb of the Apennines creates a steep, stunning backdrop to small towns and beaches, while on the cliffs' other side is rolling farmland without any industrial zones.
Stop in Portonovo, where young visitors in the know take a steep dirt trail down to a secluded beach, and others lounge near a string of good restaurants and beach club-like spots. Eat at the pretty, airy La Capanina for excellent pasta and Adriatic seafood
If you want to stay on the water, check out the Fortino Napolenico, an old fortress that buttresses the water. It has a terrace restaurant with amazing views and an elegant interior with beautiful, stone- and brick-walled rooms (from $140 with breakfast; 39 071 801450, hotelfortino.it).
Also check out Numana, a seaside town high up on a ridge that overlooks a marina. For food, try La Torre, a modern, bright waterfront restaurant open to the sky and sea (Via la Torre 1).
It was possible to see the south-central region, as well as the Sibillini Mountains, while staying at the cheerful Villa Sibillini outside of San Ginesio's walls. This renovated farmhouse is run by Pam and David Bates, who will make you feel at home while treating you like royalty.
The villa has comfortable, plain rooms, a beautiful patio and swimming pool, and stunning views of the valley. Plus, the Bates cook up a storm in its restaurant
THE LAST LEG
Inext headed north of Ancona to Senigallia and its environs. Though an active business center, Senigallia still feels like an old-fashioned resort. Hang out on the beach and splurge at Uliassi, whose innovative food is worth the higher prices (Banchina di Levante, 6; uliassi.it).
Lodge in town, or go to nearby Scapezzano. Here you'll find Locanda Strada della Marina, a casual yet sophisticated country house with a great vibe, pretty rooms and an excellent restaurant (rooms from $180/night; locandastradadellamarina.it).
Walk into Scapezzano proper, a town you could blink and miss. Located on a ridge, it overlooks rolling farmland and the sea. Off a side street you'll find the unexpectedly large, beautifully positioned Hotel Bel Sit (from $50/night; 39 071 660032, belsit.net).
From there I drove to the Grotte di Frasassi northwest of Senigallia.These fantastic caves are filled with stalactites and pools. (They're also filled with tourists.)
I didn't go much farther north except to shoot up to the university town of Urbino, a city that should be included on every first- time itinerary. One of the few places in the region that truly experienced a golden age during the Renaissance, it's now a great mix of old and new. Highlights include the Palazzo Ducale (up Via Veittorio) and Museo Albani, with its Renaissance artifacts (Piazza Rinascimentale).
For lodging, check out Hotel Bonconte, a sweet hotel located within the town walls (from $125; emet.it/welcome/marche).
The following morning I got up early and headed back south to Sibillini Mountains National Park. This sprawling area of woods, green valleys carpeted in flowers, snowy mountains and lakes was depicted in 15th- and 16th-century Europe as a land of fairies and black magic, and is not to be missed. There are hiking paths and many people bike here.
A great picnic spot is beautiful Lake Fiastra, where you can buy high-end meets, cheeses and wine in the town's small, exactingly well-stocked market (for more info on the park, visit sibillini.net).
Lowdown
GO: The gateway city for the region is Ancona - connecting flights are available from Rome and Milan on Alitalia (alitalia.com). The region is also easily reached from both cities by train or car in about three hours (raileurope.com).
GETTING AROUND: Rent a car to properly acquaint yourself with the area. Your best bet is the European-based Sixt, which offers great value on its fleet of compacts (sixt.com). There's a location at the Ancona airport (check the Web site for hours).
INFO: le-marche.com
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