Umbria and the Marche: Italy's Unsung Heartland
Thomas McNamee visits three towns in Umbria and the Marche where the culture has been unchanged for centuries and the handmade pasta is sublime.
By Thomas McNamee
ASCOLI PICENO
Italian urbanity at its most refined, with very few tourists.
To get to Ascoli Piceno, two and a half hours from Gubbio, we wound our way eastward through the vertiginous Apennines all the way to the Adriatic Sea, and then back west up a narrow valley—small wonder the town (population 52,000) has remained so isolated. Ascoli Piceno's most precious treasure isn't in the city at all. In less than an hour's drive you can be in the Parco Nazionale dei Monti Sibillini (sibillini.net), strolling through alpine meadows that are blanketed with wildflowers in late spring and summer (there are dozens of species of wild orchids alone). The tiny, entirely ungentrified village of Castelluccio presides over the miles-long plateau known as the Piano Grande, where you can enjoy a hike and still be back in Ascoli in time for dinner.
WHAT TO DO The travertine-paved Piazza del Popolo is considered among the most beautiful public spaces in Italy. At one corner of the square sits the Caffè Meletti, a perfectly preserved masterpiece of Art Deco whose anisette is the best I've ever tasted. But the art museums aren't much, the churches are no great shakes, and our dining experience was surprisingly dull.
EATING That is, until we found C'Era Una Volta (336 Via Piagge; 011-39-0736-261-780), hidden a few miles up in the hills, where the traditional cuisine of the Marche region—rustic, aromatic, true to the farms of its provenance—is rendered simply profound. Two kinds of stuffed gnocchi in two sauces, served together, were nearly the best pasta I have ever tasted, and the unadorned chunks of roast lamb were...the only word is sublime. Our two dinners (we had to go back the next night) each cost a flat $30 a head, including the frank, fresh local red wine. Surrounded by towering stone outcrops, Ascoli feels like, and is, a mountain town, but it is also only twenty-four miles from the Adriatic, from which comes the fresh seafood served at our other felicitous dining discovery, the Ristorante del Corso (277/279 Corso Mazzini; 011-39-0736-256-760). As is common throughout the area, there is no menu. The owner just brings you every antipasto in the house, then tells you what fish and shellfish he has and what of that will be best. Trust him.
SLEEPING Because Ascoli is so little visited, high-end accommodations are scarce, but the Palazzo Guiderocchi (rooms from $91; 3 Via Cesare Battisti; 011-39-0736-244-011; palazzoguiderocchi.com) is superb, with truly palatial bedrooms, personable service and free Wi-Fi in the sitting room.
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