Ascoli Piceno and the Mountains

The final day trip on our beach vacation in the province of Le Marche took us to the town of Ascoli Piceno. The town was originally settled by the Piceni people and then conquered by the Romans in the first century BC. The main square is the Piazza del Popolo, lined on three sides by wide porticoes that shelter the entrances to shops and restaurants. The square is also bounded by the Palazzo dei Capitani del Popolo (13th century) and the church of San Francesco (13th-16th century). We enjoyed a relaxed stroll through the town's narrow pedestrian-friendly streets and checked out the open-air markets. For lunch, we sampled the local delicacy: large olives stuffed with ground meat, battered like a kind of teriyaki, and fried.

The drive home took us back over the mountains of central Italy. We were surprised to see how rugged and sparsely populated this region is. The peaks range up to about 7000 feet (roughly the elevation of Jemez Springs) and there was a considerable amount of snow still to be seen.
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