Marche, explored in full.

Between the two lie hundreds of hill towns of brick and travertine, each crowning its own ridge, so that the horizon is forever serrated with belltowers and walls.

This is the Italy of the Renaissance at its most refined and its least crowded. In Urbino, Federico da Montefeltro built one of the most civilised courts in Europe, and the city gave the world Raphael; below ground at Frasassi, nature answers with cathedral-sized chambers of stone. The Marchigiani eat well and without fuss: olive ascolane stuffed and fried, spreadable ciauscolo salami, the white Verdicchio of Jesi, and the dark cherry liqueur visciolino.

Come in summer for the opera under the stars at Macerata's Sferisterio and the swing crowds of Senigallia, or in autumn, when the vineyards turn and the coast empties to the locals.