So you want rippling hills studded with medieval towns, a coastline with some of Italy's best beaches, superb food, and some of the dreamiest landscapes on the entire boot? You need Marche.
That's right, Marche (aka Le Marche -- pronounced mar-kay). Sitting quietly on the other side of the Apennine mountains from Tuscany, but happy to let its neighbors take the crowds, this is our all-around favorite region.
Marche is Italy 101: nearly 4,000 square miles of unfurling hills, dramatic mountains, sandy beaches and culture galore. And yet it sees just one-tenth of the international visitors of Tuscany.
Marche even knits together northern and southern Italy which, elsewhere, seem like two different worlds. Visit plummy university city Urbino, and you could be anywhere in the north of Italy. Ascoli Piceno, though, with its shimmering travertine piazzas and Baroque fountains (complete with elderly men watching the world go by), feels very much like the sizzling south.
Those two cities, topping and tailing the region, are up there with Italy's most spectacular towns. Spilling down a hillside, Urbino is one of the best-preserved Renaissance cities, where terracotta-paved streets built for horses still prohibit cars, and the twin-turreted Ducal Palace is cantilevered over the billowing hills. Raphael was born here -- at his birthplace, you'll see a "Madonna and Child," believed to have been frescoed by the teenage painter. His father was court painter to Federico da Montefeltro, the hyper-cultured Renaissance ruler, whose palace is now one of Italy's most evocative art galleries.
Little Ascoli Piceno, meanwhile, is jaw-droppingly beautiful -- entirely clad in brilliant travertine, its buildings running from Romanesque to Art Nouveau.
There's much more to see. Macerata province is full of tiny, jewel-like hilltop towns. Pesaro and Fano are elegant seaside resorts. And the Riviera del Conero is a natural park, with wild beaches backed by chalk-white cliffs. Nondescript churches are stuffed with great artworks by the likes of Carlo Crivelli and Giovanni Santi (Raphael's dad -- see what's thought to be his self-portrait with his son as a saint and angel in Cagli's San Domenico church). This region has everything. Just don't tell anyone else.
