Some journeys are all about the mind and what it remembers. I lost mine in the Marche region of Italy many years ago.
My husband Richard and I first visited here in 2001. Marche is a magical landscape to the east between Rimini and Pescara, dotted with rolling hills, majestic mountains and medieval towns on the hillside. By chance, she came across a small town on a hill called Sarnano. Late one night we had to eat, and we drove to this clean place and found a simple restaurant on a steep and winding street.
Housed in a refurbished cellar, we served the most unforgettable ravioli di noch, pasta stuffed with crushed walnuts stuffed with fresh Parmesan cheese.
The menu was simple and there were only a few main dishes, but each dish was the most perfect.
After that, I took a walk in the square of the main town of Sarnano, ate gelato, greeted each other with local friends and neighbors, and stopped by for an apéritif on the way home. It was warm and cozy and surrounded by the most pristine lush countryside. It felt like a place you would call home.
Since then, each year, based in Sarnano, we have returned religiously to explore and hike the mountain trails of the Monticivilini National Park, which straddles the Umbrian-Malcare Penin Mountains. This is a vast wilderness where you can hike for hours and never meet others. Wild boars (meat and salami are served in many Italian restaurants) and wolves roam the woods. Hiking trails pass through canyons, glacier streams, and many acres of primeval forest.
I felt like I wasn’t influenced by mass tourism.
It was also like sitting in the center of town, paying € 1.10 for coffee and watching the comings and goings of the locals in a vibrant country community. A place where you can buy sandwich bread at a great local bakery and shop by first name with a bakery and a woman at an old-fashioned grocery store that sells local cheese by the weekend was.
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Kathy Donergy in the mountains of Marche
I finally visited Marche when I was four months pregnant with my first child. It was the spring of 2008. I wrote in my travelogue that the ground was covered with snow and one of the trails I hiked was full of boar prints.
I closed the entry by saying that one day I would bring the baby back to this place.
Well, today the baby is 13 years old and the younger brother is 10 years old. She had been talking about Marche for years, but now why not take her two sons to this place that fascinated her husband and me?
Can it respond to the story we told them?
When we planned the trip, we wondered if Marche remained as crowdless as we remembered. Do trails still hold us with their spells, as they once had? Will our boys, Daran and Oil Guiol, come to love this place as we had?
Pandemics aside, I don’t know why it took us years to get back here. But we wanted to wait until the boys were old enough to enjoy a long walk in the mountains. I didn’t have to worry. After all, our children were healthier than us and ready to explore the mountains and forests. In fact, they wanted to run the trail instead of taking a walk.
In our memory, this place lived in a special and wild place. Thankfully, the year hasn’t changed much. Compared to the huge number of tourists visiting neighboring Tuscany and Umbria, Marche is still very quiet.
For this trip, I brought a well-made OS map of the trail, hiking boots, wet gear, and sunscreen. Since the area is mountainous, it is not uncommon to have four seasons a day, and the long-term weather forecast was good, but I wanted to prepare.
Our holiday rental, a small two-bedroom wooden chalet overlooking Sarnano, offers magnificent views of the Apennines and gives children a glimpse of Marche for the first time. They heard a lot from us. For example, one morning when a wild boar and her six piglets jumped out of a ditch in front of them and soon disappeared into the woods, we set out to run. The boys wanted to experience this wilderness for themselves.
At first, I chose the route that Richard and I took in the past. We knew they were something the boys would enjoy, so we wanted to see them again.
On the first day, we drove to a mountain village in Bolognola, 1,000 meters away, and ran a small slope in the winter. One of our favorite routes is to plunge into the valley of Rio Sacro. Here you will follow a path along a river valley deep in the forest. The boys were enthusiastic about exploration and ran in front of us.
Richard and I hiked around the world from Alaska to the Inca Trail in Peru, but when the boys arrived, many of our distant travel adventures stopped. We have always wanted to grow to appreciate our love for open trails. At Marque, I wanted to keep moving forward to see the next corner.
“It’s the same as it used to be, but there are more companies,” Richard told me. When they disappeared around the corner, he said it was back only to us two again.
The mountain in the middle remains very peaceful and quiet while many travelers to Marche choose the coast. During the four hours of hiking on the first day, traces of foxes and wild boars were everywhere, but there were no signs of others.
Late spring in this mountainous region of Italy, the buds just came out on the trees and the last snowdrops were still visible at my feet.
The boy’s favorite hike we went on for two days in a row was Goladel Infernacho, who passed through a steep rocky canyon before appearing in the woods along the Tena River. In winter, thousands of cubic tons of water flood the river, and as the name implies, it looks like a canyon of hell.
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Goladell’Infernaccio or Gorge of Hell
But in the spring, the same river becomes a companion for a peaceful journey. You will be amazed at how the water is carved into the curve of the valley.This place The last mohawk A territory full of swirling waterfalls and high mountain cliffs.
And of course, in the spirit of that meal we enjoyed in Sarnano over 20 years ago, we ate well.
The Ristorante Pizzeria Il Colle offers the best pizzas in town and was the best choice for our children. Opposite the main Liberty Square, Bar Central offers delicious coffee and cakes, perfect for an apéritif. If you’re visiting nearby Monte Monaco, Forno di Lelle Bakery is a paradise for fans of Italian bread and sweets. The town is 30 minutes from Sarnano and is one of the most beautiful towns in Marche. Founded by Benedictine monks, it offers impressive views of Mount Vettore and Mount Sibyl.
On the way back from one night’s hike, just as the last light went out, we ran on a back road with jungles on both sides, slowing down the car and seeing if we could find the boar.
We were driving for only a few minutes when we saw most mythical creatures pass through the trees in family folklore. They briefly saw us before disappearing into the bush. After all, we didn’t make them up.
I hope it won’t take long to get back to Sarnano. Something is telling me it won’t. Fascinated by this place, there are two boys studying maps, planning for their revisit.
Get there:
I skipped Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) I went to Rome and drove north for 3 hours to the small town of Sarnano.
Ryanair also flies to Ancona (ryanair.com).
In Sarnano, we used Airbnb to rent a chalet on the outskirts of town (airbnb.ie).
See for more information. turismo.marche.it
Italy has now lifted Covid’s travel ban.look italia.it
Three heavenly hikes
Gola dell’Infernaccio
The Hell Canyon Trail follows the Tena River Path through a deep high-side canyon. It is close to the stunning town of Monte Monaco (8.5 km, around).
Rio Sacro
Hiking through the Rio Sacro Valley is like entering the secret world of lush forests. Follow the signs for the village of Bolognola and look for trail signs here (6km, round trip).
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Lake Fiastra in the Sibillini Mountains
Lake fiastra
There are miles of trails around this stunning lake. It takes 2 hours to walk from San Lorenzo Arlago along the right side of the lake (7 km, loop) to the nature trail.
