Bandiera Arancione
Bandiera Arancione in Marche
22 towns
Marche carries 22 of the Bandiera Arancione towns we cover. They cluster in the Macerata, Ancona, and Pesaro e Urbino provinces.
The three most recognised in our catalogue are Amandola, Cingoli, and Gradara. 19 more towns carry the mark alongside them.
Amandola
Province: Fermo · 550 m
A Sibillini gateway at 550 meters on three hills above the Tenna valley, founded 1248 and damaged but not levelled in 2016.
Cingoli
Province: Macerata · 631 m
The Balcone delle Marche at 631 meters, a hilltop borgo where on clear days the view runs from the Sibillini to the Croatian coast.
Gradara
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 142 m
The walled hill borgo at 142 meters above the Adriatic where Dante set the deaths of Paolo and Francesca, with one of Italy's best-preserved castles.
Montelupone
Province: Macerata · 272 m
A walled hill borgo at 272 meters above the lower Potenza valley, with a fourteenth-century civic loggia and a 1889 horseshoe theatre.
Ripatransone
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 494 m
The Belvedere del Piceno at 494 meters, ridgetop borgo with views to the Adriatic and the narrowest alley in Italy at 43 centimeters.
Valfornace
Province: Macerata · 441 m
A 909-resident Sibillini commune at 441 meters in the upper Chienti valley, born in 2017 from the merger of Pievebovigliana and Fiordimonte.
Cantiano
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 374 m
A border borgo at 374 meters under Monte Catria on the old Via Flaminia, known for the Good Friday Turba and the sour-cherry visciola harvest.
Corinaldo
Province: Ancona · 203 m
A walled hill borgo at 203 meters with 912 meters of intact medieval walls, the birthplace of Saint Maria Goretti and the Pozzo della Polenta.
Montecassiano
Province: Macerata · 188 m
A walled hill borgo at 188 meters north of Macerata, holding the seven-meter terracotta altarpiece Mattia della Robbia fired in a kiln built in town.
San Ginesio
Province: Macerata · 680 m
The Balcony of the Sibillini at 680 meters, with a 1295 pilgrim hospital and the only flowery gothic collegiate church in the Marche.
Visso
Province: Macerata · 607 m
The northern Sibillini gate at 607 meters where the Nera meets the Ussita, holding one of two surviving manuscripts of Leopardi's L'Infinito.
Camerino
Province: Macerata · 661 m
A university city at 661 meters on the ridge between the Chienti and Potenza, Da Varano capital from 1259 to 1539, rebuilding after 2016.
Mercatello sul Metauro
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 429 m
A walled borgo at 429 meters in the upper Metauro, autonomous since 1235, with a pieve exempt from any bishop.
Mondavio
Province: Pesaro e Urbino · 280 m
A hill borgo at 280 meters whose Rocca Roveresca, designed by Francesco di Giorgio Martini in the 1480s, never took a cannon shot.
Morrovalle
Province: Macerata · 247 m
A hilltop borgo at 247 meters above the Chienti valley, holding a 1560 Eucharistic Miracle from the burning of its Franciscan convent.
Offagna
Province: Ancona · 309 m
A hilltop borgo at 309 meters between Ancona and Osimo, dominated by a Rocca built in just two years by the Anconitans in 1454-56.
Sarnano
Province: Macerata · 539 m
A 539-meter medieval borgo of baked brick at the foot of the Sibillini, with thermal springs that ran for 84 years until the 2016 earthquake.
Serra San Quirico
Province: Ancona · 409 m
A stone borgo on Monte Murano at the entrance to the Gola della Rossa, ringed by 1300 walls with covered passageways called copertelle.
Staffolo
Province: Ancona · 442 m
The Verdicchio balcony at 442 meters above three valleys, with a near-circular medieval wall ring and a wine museum carved into the ramparts.
Acquaviva Picena
Province: Ascoli Piceno · 359 m
A walled hill borgo at 359 meters six kilometers from the Adriatic, anchored by a Baccio Pontelli fortress and the surviving pajarola craft.
Genga
Province: Ancona · 322 m
A small Sentino-valley commune at 322 meters whose territory holds the Frasassi caves, the largest karst show cave in Italy.
San Severino Marche
Province: Macerata · 235 m
A two-level town where a 224-meter elliptical piazza in the lower city looks up at the Smeducci tower and Salimbeni-painted churches on Monte Nero.
Subscribe — free
Get the best guides on hidden Italian towns.
One letter on Sundays. The week’s town, with the photo, the food, the festa. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.
Substack sends a confirmation link to your inbox. The signup finishes when it’s clicked.
From elsewhere in Italy
Five more towns to discover
Pieve di Soligo
Province: Treviso
The market town between the Soligo and Lierza rivers in the Prosecco UNESCO zone, birthplace of the twentieth-century poet Andrea Zanzotto.
Vallefoglia
Province: Pesaro e Urbino
A 2014 merger commune at 295 meters in the Foglia valley, born from Colbordolo, birthplace of Raffaello's father, and Sant'Angelo in Lizzola.
Abano Terme
Province: Padova
Europe's oldest thermal town on the Euganean Hills' eastern slope, where 80°C bromo-iodine springs have been drawing bathers since the eighth century BC.
Bosa
Province: Oristano
A colour-washed riverside town on Sardinia's only navigable river, with a Malaspina castle on the hill and the tanneries of Sas Conzas along the Temo.
Castagnole delle Lanze
Province: Asti
An Asti hill town at 298 meters between Langhe and Monferrato, with two Baroque churches and a nineteenth-century astronomical tower.