We woke very late after the depredations of Friday night, though Ian and Jane—who were expecting additional guests today—weren’t quite as late as we were. Over breakfast (ours—they’d already eaten), they explained that two Italian families would be arriving later on, in connection with the First Communion celebrations taking place tomorrow in Cupramontana.
We noticed they were getting short of a few things in the breakfast line, and offered to do a little shopping. This fitted well with their plans; Ian was going to fire up the barbeque that evening, and the pizza oven the next, so if we were going shopping, we’d be able to get some BBQ food, pizza bases, and our own choices of pizza toppings. Jane gave us instructions of how to get to her preferred supermarket in Jesi (also spelt Iesi, and pronounced, roughly, “Yeah-zee”), including a hand-drawn map—their map of the town having disappeared, probably taken by an absent-minded guest; and so we were off.
Jesi is about 13 miles by road from Il Vecchio Cantinone. A hundred years or so ago, it was a typical small, fortified, hilltop town, though a little different from the hilltop towns we’d already visited. For one thing,
its hill is a low narrow ridge (less than 100 metres above sea level, as compared with, say, Cupramontana at over 500 metres). For another, the town walls (13th century, built on Roman foundations, and the best preserved in the region, with towers, buttresses, and houses atop) largely surround the hill, rather than being on it.
The historic town centre, with various palazzi and the Duomo (cathedral), is contained within the walls; but a much larger urban sprawl has developed out of it, cascading down the western hillside and spreading out across the Esino river floodplain. We were interested in the old town, but had to drive through the newer town to get up to it, following the signposts for the Centro Istorico. Jane had recommended we visit the Tourist Information Centre (TIC), and also asked us to pick up a brochure about forthcoming events at the adjoining Teatro Pergolesi.
Having negotiated the newer streets, we entered the old town at its western end, via the triumphal Clementine Arch, and followed the dead-straight Corso Matteoti until we found the Piazza della Repubblica, which we felt
might be the right place for the TIC. But we could find nowhere to park, so worked our way down the narrow streets until we came to the free (on Saturdays) car park in the Piazza Baccio Pontelli, just where Jane had indicated—inside the town walls at the foot of the south-east side of the hill, and behind a most impressive tower.
From there we walked back up to the piazza, which was quite an arduous climb for Margaret up the steep hillside, and (it turned out) unnecessarily so; the inadequate map in the Touring Le Marche book we’d borrowed from Ian and Jane misled us into taking The Long way Round. Still, the Tourist Information Centre was just where we’d thought (just as well), so we picked up a much more useful map with associated, well, "tourist information" (what else? But the current “forthcoming events” brochures had all gone …).
Quite unexpectedly, as we were leaving, Don spotted a plaque half-way up a wall at a corner of the square, which gave us both a buzz. It read (in Italian):
“In this house was born the writer Rafael Sabatini (1875 – 1950), whose Capitan Blood and Scaramouche were made famous by the movies.”
Using our nice new map, we left the Piazza della Repubblica and made our way through the old town’s narrow cobbled streets. There were little gems along the way: the elegant 16th-Century portico of the Domus Verronum along the via Pergolesi; the Palazzo Ghisleri Scalamonti, glimpsed through its own archway; and little alleyways with flowered balconies on house walls washed a pale orange shade, or with views down the hillside and across the plain to neighbouring hills.
We came to the Piazza Federico II, the site of the Roman market place, where the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II was born in an open tent in 1194. This was his mother’s way of dispelling the rumour that (being forty years old) she was faking pregnancy, and thus forestalling any doubts about her son’s real parentage.
Fred 2 “was one of the most interesting characters in history”, we’ve learnt: multi-linguist, statesman, enlightened legislator, poet, scientist (he’s credited with beginning the scientific revolution, by insisting on observation before theory), architect, and certainly worth reading about.
The piazza itself is blighted by its central 19th-Century obelisk and fountain, but is surrounded by interesting buildings, including a couple of museums we’d have liked to seen. Unfortunately, they were closed—one of them because it was still officially “winter” (the “summer” season starting on 1st July!).
We noticed they were getting short of a few things in the breakfast line, and offered to do a little shopping. This fitted well with their plans; Ian was going to fire up the barbeque that evening, and the pizza oven the next, so if we were going shopping, we’d be able to get some BBQ food, pizza bases, and our own choices of pizza toppings. Jane gave us instructions of how to get to her preferred supermarket in Jesi (also spelt Iesi, and pronounced, roughly, “Yeah-zee”), including a hand-drawn map—their map of the town having disappeared, probably taken by an absent-minded guest; and so we were off.
Jesi is about 13 miles by road from Il Vecchio Cantinone. A hundred years or so ago, it was a typical small, fortified, hilltop town, though a little different from the hilltop towns we’d already visited. For one thing,
its hill is a low narrow ridge (less than 100 metres above sea level, as compared with, say, Cupramontana at over 500 metres). For another, the town walls (13th century, built on Roman foundations, and the best preserved in the region, with towers, buttresses, and houses atop) largely surround the hill, rather than being on it.The historic town centre, with various palazzi and the Duomo (cathedral), is contained within the walls; but a much larger urban sprawl has developed out of it, cascading down the western hillside and spreading out across the Esino river floodplain. We were interested in the old town, but had to drive through the newer town to get up to it, following the signposts for the Centro Istorico. Jane had recommended we visit the Tourist Information Centre (TIC), and also asked us to pick up a brochure about forthcoming events at the adjoining Teatro Pergolesi.
Having negotiated the newer streets, we entered the old town at its western end, via the triumphal Clementine Arch, and followed the dead-straight Corso Matteoti until we found the Piazza della Repubblica, which we felt
might be the right place for the TIC. But we could find nowhere to park, so worked our way down the narrow streets until we came to the free (on Saturdays) car park in the Piazza Baccio Pontelli, just where Jane had indicated—inside the town walls at the foot of the south-east side of the hill, and behind a most impressive tower.From there we walked back up to the piazza, which was quite an arduous climb for Margaret up the steep hillside, and (it turned out) unnecessarily so; the inadequate map in the Touring Le Marche book we’d borrowed from Ian and Jane misled us into taking The Long way Round. Still, the Tourist Information Centre was just where we’d thought (just as well), so we picked up a much more useful map with associated, well, "tourist information" (what else? But the current “forthcoming events” brochures had all gone …).
Quite unexpectedly, as we were leaving, Don spotted a plaque half-way up a wall at a corner of the square, which gave us both a buzz. It read (in Italian):
“In this house was born the writer Rafael Sabatini (1875 – 1950), whose Capitan Blood and Scaramouche were made famous by the movies.”
Using our nice new map, we left the Piazza della Repubblica and made our way through the old town’s narrow cobbled streets. There were little gems along the way: the elegant 16th-Century portico of the Domus Verronum along the via Pergolesi; the Palazzo Ghisleri Scalamonti, glimpsed through its own archway; and little alleyways with flowered balconies on house walls washed a pale orange shade, or with views down the hillside and across the plain to neighbouring hills.
We came to the Piazza Federico II, the site of the Roman market place, where the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II was born in an open tent in 1194. This was his mother’s way of dispelling the rumour that (being forty years old) she was faking pregnancy, and thus forestalling any doubts about her son’s real parentage.
Fred 2 “was one of the most interesting characters in history”, we’ve learnt: multi-linguist, statesman, enlightened legislator, poet, scientist (he’s credited with beginning the scientific revolution, by insisting on observation before theory), architect, and certainly worth reading about.
The piazza itself is blighted by its central 19th-Century obelisk and fountain, but is surrounded by interesting buildings, including a couple of museums we’d have liked to seen. Unfortunately, they were closed—one of them because it was still officially “winter” (the “summer” season starting on 1st July!).
There was also the Cathedral, which again we’d have liked to visit, but its doorway was being decorated with greenery, presumably in preparation for tomorrow’s First Communions, and we couldn’t get in. The adjoining Palazzo Baleani, with four “vigorous caryatids” on its façade, was also closed.
We wandered back to the Piazza della Repubblica, passing a house with an amazing "black madonna" shrine high on its wall. At a little trattoria on the north corner of the Piazza dell Repubblica, we paused for coffees and gelati, then tackled the steep hill back down to the car. The road is for foot traffic only; the footpaths are ridged (see the photo below) so that you can still negotiate them when they’re iced or snowed over in winter, but Margaret found they didn’t help her hips and knees at all. 
From the car park (behind the wall stretching forwards and leftward from the tower in the centre of the picture), we drove down out of the centro istorico and promptly got lost in the one-way system in the east side of town. Eventually, Margaret navigated us round to the Lidl supermarket, where we bought the groceries, some wine (avoiding the local Verdicchio because it was our hosts’ regular), and lots of limoncello: an interesting first experience in a “foreign” supermarket; then onto the SS78 and so back to Il Vecchio Cantinone, 
where the four of us enjoyed the fruits of our shopping, and sat and nattered for a while, before we made our tired but happy way down to our apartment and bed. 
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