Ascoli Piceno

Ascoli Piceno may be the most beautiful Italian city you have never heard of, and it is a long way from everywhere, which is precisely why it stayed that way.

Built almost entirely of pale travertine stone, this small city of about forty-six thousand in the deep south of Marche is an architectural jewel: fifty medieval towers, churches and palaces, and at its heart the Piazza del Popolo, ranked by Italians themselves among the most beautiful squares in the country, a glowing travertine living room where the whole city gathers in the evening. Older than Rome, deeply authentic, and almost entirely untouristed, it offers a quintessential central-Italian life, the Saturday market, the aperitivo in the square, the famous stuffed fried olives, at a fraction of the price of its famous neighbors.