Family Holidays: Marche family holidays and breaks

Take the Family holiday rating 3½ stars out of 5

Why

The English have only recently discovered the delights of the Italian Marches so you can wander the streets of rural towns and villages that would be crammed with tourists if you were in Tuscany. Drive north to wander the steep streets of the ultimate Renaissance town of Urbino or south to sit in the Piazza del Popolo in Ascoli Piceno while the kids, yours and theirs, treat the travertine square as a playground. The white cliffs of the Monte Conero peninsula may make you think you returned too early to Britain but the high season crowds on the Sirolo and Portonovo beaches will remind you quickly enough that this is Italy on holiday. But visit even the southern Adriatic resorts of San Benedetto del Tronto and Grottamare out of season and you will have the beach to yourself. Tenuta Le Piane in the foothills of the Sybillini mountains makes a wonderful base for families who like to explore the great outdoors and whose children don't moan when you say you have planned a five kilometre walk with a picnic for the day.

Above left: Marche countryside
Above middle: Gorgeous views
Above right: Hiking

When

If it's a beach holiday you are after you should probably avoid the three main weeks of the Italian August summer holiday, although with the Macerata and Pesaro opera festivals taking place then, this might be an enticement for the more cultured parents among you. One advantage of this area is that the hill towns inland escape those crowds and some of the summer heat too as the almost permanent snow on the highest mountain tops indicate. Our favourite months are May and June and September and October which allows for one of those more experimental family half-term holidays.

How

take the plane

Ancona airport, serviced by daily Ryanair flights, is close to the Riviera del Conero, making Il Granaio di Valcastagno one of our easiest properties to reach. With BA and Ryanair flying to Bologna and Forli respectively, there are also plenty of other possibilities, especially if you are considering a two centre holiday. It is a close call between Ancona and Pescara in order to reach Amandola and Sarnano, the nearest small towns to the Tenuta del Piane, but the 95 km drive in your hired car means you will have arrived at your holiday destination in under two hours.

Do

Take the shuttle bus down to the beach from Sirolo’s piazza.

Take a family hiking trail in the foothills of the Sibillini National Park.

Explore the public footpaths on the Monte Conero.

Drive a few minutes to the Conero Golf club where you can use the swimming pool and tennis courts at reduced prices.

Share the pebbly beach at Portonovo with a Napoleonic fort and a Romanesque church.

Explain to the children that they are eating ‘agnello castrato’ when you take a long lunch break at a local hill town taverna.

Watch the passiegata in Ascoli Piceno’s Piazza del Popolo.

Eat

You will end up being offered fried olives all'ascolana even if you are not staying in the Piceno region, but the speciality you are more likely to remember is the seafood with brodetto, or fish soup appearing in various memorable forms. Inland it’s the cured pork and hams, the local pecorino cheeses, the mushrooms and the prized white truffles you will be offered. Dry Verdicchio white wines make for easy summer drinking but it’s the reds from Conero (Rosso Conero) and the more serious Piceno Red that you will remember.