Tourism has been my passion and my profession since 1990. I began in La Plata, Argentina, at Euromar Turismo, the agency owned by my beloved father, Orazio Filippo Greco, before continuing in Italy with Andina Viaggi. Merlintravel grows from that experience and the desire to keep exploring and sharing the world. The journey continues…
Let’s see where it takes us.
Tourism has been my passion and my profession since 1990. I began in La Plata, Argentina, at Euromar Turismo, the agency owned by my beloved father, Orazio Filippo Greco, before continuing in Italy with Andina Viaggi. Merlintravel grows from that experience and the desire to keep exploring and sharing the world. The journey continues…
Let’s see where it takes us.
Adriatic ports, Renaissance courts, hill towns, pilgrimage and Apennine landscapes in the plural.
Even its name is plural: the Marche are many territories facing one sea.
The region is a sequence of valleys between the Apennines and Adriatic. Picene archaeology, Roman roads, medieval communes, Montefeltro culture, papal territories, pilgrimage and coastal trade created multiple local centres rather than one dominant capital.
The historical line crosses Picene and Roman worlds, Byzantine and Lombard frontiers, communes and signorie, Renaissance Urbino and the long papal period.
Archaeological sites and museums document pre-Roman communities later integrated by roads and colonies.
Byzantine and Lombard territories met across a region of strategic valleys and coastal connections.
Ancona, Fano, Ascoli and many hill centres developed strong civic institutions and markets.
A small court became an influential centre of architecture, painting, books and humanist culture.
Long incorporation into the Papal States shaped administration, religious networks and urban development.
Unification, rural change, industry, war and repeated earthquakes transformed communities and landscapes.
The atlas follows river valleys from mountain to sea, pairing Urbino and the north with Ancona, Loreto, Macerata and Ascoli Piceno.
Map markers identify the main places covered by the guides.
Four circuits show the region’s plural structure: court culture, Adriatic trade, pilgrimage and mountain interiors.
Court architecture, Raphael’s city, libraries and hill fortresses open the northern interior.
A Greek-founded port, Adriatic routes, limestone cliffs and coastal towns share one maritime landscape.
Pilgrimage, opera, civic museums and farmed valleys structure the central region.
Roman roads, travertine squares, Picene heritage and mountain communities define the south.
Eight documented guides connect cities, archaeological sites, pilgrimage sanctuaries, cave landscapes, mountains and the Adriatic coast. Choose a territory and plan its visits at a realistic pace.
A Renaissance court, small oratories and a painter’s household unfold across the steep streets of a university city.
Open the guide →A cathedral above a working harbour, Roman monuments and mercantile streets reveal a city shaped by its relationship with the Adriatic.
Open the guide →Travertine squares, civic authority, religious art and Roman traces give the inland Picene city a remarkably coherent material character.
Open the guide →A pilgrimage sanctuary brings devotion, Renaissance sculpture, defensive architecture and a remarkable museum into one hilltop ensemble.
Open the guide →Caves, a limestone gorge, monastic buildings and a hill village connect geological time with the inhabited Sentino valley.
Open the guide →High basins, a reservoir, pilgrimage architecture and communities rebuilding their towns reveal a mountain landscape with many scales of time.
Open the guide →A wooded promontory, white cliffs, monastic churches and Picene archaeology give this Adriatic coast a history deeper than its beaches.
Open the guide →Performance spaces, civic collections, a poet’s library and migration stories connect two hill towns with a much wider cultural world.
Open the guide →Monuments matter, but so do languages, crafts, routes, rituals and working landscapes.
Architecture, collections and urban form preserve a Renaissance ideal of the learned court.
Loreto and valley sanctuaries connect devotion to roads, hospitality and international exchange.
Historic theatres in towns large and small record a dense tradition of civic performance.
Sharecropping memory, ceramics, paper, footwear and regional cuisines belong to working landscapes.
Land, water and ecological systems are read together with the communities that have learned to inhabit them.
High plateaux, glacial forms and pastoral ecosystems cross the border with Umbria.
Mediterranean woodland descends abruptly to coves along an otherwise low Adriatic coast.
Caves and gorges reveal underground water systems and exceptional limestone geology.
Parallel valleys organise towns, agriculture, roads and the movement from Apennines to sea.
The Hub uses the English name Marche while explaining the historic plural. It avoids presenting the region as a single chain of pretty hill towns detached from agriculture and seismic history.
The journey continues.
Return to the Italy regional atlas