Your Marche travel won't be complete without a visit to Ascoli Piceno, a visitor friendly historic Italy city of outstanding beauty. We left the car at the Porta Torricella parking, took a handy lift and in few steps found ourselves in the amazing Piazza Arringo. This is the cultural center of the city, here are the main museums, the Bishop’s Palace and the cathedral, we also stumbled upon the visitor center run by an extremely knowledgeable guide who gave us this easy itinerary to visit the best of the town in few ours. In Piazza Arringo don't miss the magnificent Duomo di Sant’Emidio and the crypt with its intriguing maze of columns. Actually Sant’Emidio, patron saint of the city, has himself a quite intriguing story: he is invoked against earthquakes, because as soon as he arrived in Ascoli a tremendous shake caused the fall of all the pagan temples. He was later martyred by beheading for converting to Christianity the daughter of the Roman governor. The story says he then picked up his own head, walked away to the graveyard and dug his own grave. In the Chapel of the Sacrament is a painting by Carlo Crivelli, a Madonna with Child and the Saints. The influence of this painting in the local culture is still very strong: it goes as far as inspiring the medieval costumes worn during the annual Palio della Quintana, a jousting contest.
It was teeming with the unlikely mix of brides and basketball player, some of the brides got carried away and, to our surprise, started playing basketball. Don’t miss Caffe’ Meletti, a historic bar and restaurant: they serve the aperitivo with delicious complimentary food.
At the other end of the square is the San Francesco church: if you knock on the columns at the side of the entrance, they will emit different notes: we couldn’t resist a little concert on the go.Behind the church is a cloister, now used as daily market: this probably makes of it one of the most beautiful stores you'll see in your Italy travel. We ended our visit in via de’ Soderini flanked by many medieval and renaissance buildings and towers. During the middle ages, Ascoli used to be called "citta’ turrita" ( city of towers) for there were as many as two hundred towers. About seventy of the towers can still be seen, invasions and destruction ruined the others.
In Ascoli the secondary streets are called “rua” instead of “via” like in the rest of Italy cities. Ascoli is a small gem and will keep a special place in the memories of your Italy vacation. Marche travel: Ascoli Piceno and the Palio della Quintana
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From Piazza Arringo we walked to the spectacular Piazza del Popolo.
