Marche – A week of Medieval marvels
September 22, 2020
We’ve been house (and cat) sitting in the area of Marche in Italy. Â I had to look it up as this is a new one on me, I mean Tuscany, Umbria. Lombardy…I’ve heard of all of these, but Marche? Â Quick geography for those, who like me, are naive to this area:
Marche is in the centre of Italy on the Adriatic East coast. Â It borders Umbria and Tuscany to the west, Abruzzo to the South and to the north are Emilia Romagna and the Republic of San Marino (a separate country, not part of Italy or the EU – more on that later).
So, what is there in Marche?
Recanati
The perfect start to our toe-dip into Marche – Recanati. We were fortunate to have stayed in an amazing top floor apartment with a sea view while looking after Jack the cat. And only a 5-minute walk up to the hilltop medieval town of Recanati.  This is what whetted our appetite to see more of Marche’s medieval towns; small cobbled streets, beautiful historic architecture, amazing views, piazzas where you can grab a beer and watch the local life happening, gateways into the walled city and a tower to climb and appreciate the city from above.
Also the home of Giacomo Leopardi, apparently the most famous Italian poet of the 19th century. Â Once again I feel my education is somewhat lacking, I probably would have guessed artist? Â There is a great museum (for educating oneself) – the house of Leopardi, and snippets of his poetry are dotted around the city. Â Translator required. Â I got the gist…romance, love, philosophy.
An abundance of hilltop medieval towns.
There are beautiful hilltop medieval towns in abundance. Too many for us to see in one week, but thanks to the website ‘the most beautiful villages in Italy’, we were able to narrow it down somewhat (although on their website there are still 18 in Marche alone). Â To us, it’s photography heaven. Â Medieval architecture, narrow lanes, amazing views and usually there’s a good osteria tucked away somewhere. Â I have to let the photos do the talking:
The food of Marche
It’s still Italy, there’s still a lot of pasta and meat, but the food of Marche is very different to the food we get in the north. Â Examples are needed:
Crescia – A speciality of Marche.  Crescia is a big round flat bread (size of a pizza), and served either on its own or with cheese and meats – or as we ventured, raw sausage. We thought this would be something Italian and possibly cured, but no, it looked exactly like raw English sausages.  A bit off-putting, but actually really good spread on the bread, and we noticed that almost every other (Italian) person in the restaurant ordered the same thing for a starter.
Cresciotella – stuffed tagliatelle.  That long flat pasta, yes, but stuffed. This home-made pasta was a marvel – long strips of tagliatelle that had been made wider, then a stuffing of meat put down the middle before it was folded, sealing the stuffing.  Wrapped in a sauce and topped with almonds – delicious.
 Calamarata – sounds like calamari, but this is a dish where the pasta is made into shapes that look just like calamari rings. then served with a tomato sauce. Â
There’s no end to the different pasta types, but we are getting better at guessing what we have ordered: calamarata – calamari shaped pasta, sacchettoni– squares of pasta, filled and then gathered at the top to form small bags (sachetti means bag in Italian) Capellatarata – pasta in the shape of hats.  It’s actually quite logical.
....and the wine of course.
We love finding new wines and had never heard of wine from Marche (anyone?). So we were delighted when we passed vineyards and cantinas where we were able to sample their wines. The area nearest to us had its own DOC/DOCG wines, made from Montepulciano grapes. The Rosso Conero – a dry, fruity, deep red wine. And their riserva, the Sassi Neri Conero – a DOCG; full bodied, dry, velvety and a deep purple colour. We purchased a few bottles (enjoying one as I type), but also found we could buy straight from the barrel into any container. The water from our 1.5litre bottles was unceremoniously emptied onto the ground and filled with beautiful red wine….and at €2.40 a litre, almost as cheap as the water.
The sea and the nature in Marche
Anyone who knows us will know we are not lay-around-on-the-beach people. Here in Marche it looks like serious business though. Every beach had private areas with neat row upon row of loungers, each under an umbrella, to be rented out either daily or for the season.  It makes it more difficult for the spontaneous beach visitor and definitely spoils the fun for anyone who likes to get up early and “reserve” a lounger with their towel….you know who you are.
Marche has a few regional parks that look amazing. Â We managed to visit two, the Abbadia di Fiastra, Â Walking paths and a beautiful abbey.
We also visited the very local regional park of Conero (of the wine), which is a coastal mountain park with great walking and cycling paths with pocket views of the coast and tucked away coves. 
Where next?...A different country - San Marino
