What Three Writers in Italy Told Me to Visit

Three towns too small for the lists, picked by the people who live in or love them

Three Italian towns. Each one was recommended by a writer who either lives there or can’t stop thinking about it. They’re the kind of places this whole publication exists for: too small for the lists, too good to miss. Here they are, in the words of the people who love them.

Grottammare Alta

On the Adriatic coast in Le Marche, above a busy beach town, a medieval borgo sits up a fifteen-minute climb that most people below never bother to make. It keeps a strange clock. In summer, it fills with late dinners on balconies over a dark sea, and the rest of the year it shutters almost entirely, left to silence and the local cats. Time your visit wrong, and you’ll find nothing there at all.

It was sent to me by Eric Beall, who knows the place at night, in season, at the good table:

My favorite place isn’t even really a town, but rather a part of one, a medieval borgo above the Adriatic. We prefer the balcony view and small plates at Vineria M481. The proprietor, Peppe, has the voice of a vero Romano, cured by years of cigarettes, coffee and good wine, and the place was a bakery as far back as the 1400s. It’s on the summer nights that the old town comes alive.

© Eric Beall

Eric writes Life Lived Italian, where a New Yorker who never left turns Italian history into something closer to detective fiction. If you like your travel writing with a story underneath it, subscribe to Eric.

He wrote his own piece on Grottammare here:

Between A Rock and a Hard Place

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Colle di Val d’Elsa

An hour out of Florence, half an hour from Siena, San Gimignano, and Volterra, sits a medieval town that almost nobody stops in, ringed on every side by the ones everybody else visits. The ancient Via Francigena once ran through these hills. The food ranges from Michelin-starred to the kind of family trattoria you hope to stumble into. Its problem, and its gift, is its address: surrounded by famous neighbors, it gets passed straight through, unknown even to a lot of the people who live nearby.

It was sent to me by Giulia Scarpaleggia, who was born there:

Colle di Val d’Elsa, my hometown, is an underrated medieval town, still unknown to many tourists and even to many of the locals. One hour from Florence, half an hour from Siena, San Gimignano, Volterra. The food scene is incredible, from a Michelin star restaurant to family run trattorias.

© Giulia Scarpaleggia

Giulia writes Letters from Tuscany, seasonal recipes and Tuscan home cooking from a writer who’s lived it her whole life, with photographs by her husband Tommaso. One of the warmest food letters on the platform. Subscribe to Giulia here.

She also wrote her own full piece on this beautiful town:

Foodie Guide: Colle di Val D'Elsa and its surroundings

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Fabriano

In the hills of Le Marche, there’s a town that runs at an unhurried pace, with terrific food and the kind of host who’ll keep you talking in her garden until you’ve forgotten to go see the town at all. Some places sell themselves on what you can tick off. This one seems to work the opposite way: you go to look around and end up staying with the company.

It was sent to me by Gillian Longworth McGuire, who only spent one night there and hasn’t shaken it since:

A few months ago I spent the night in Fabriano in Le Marche. As soon as I got in the car I wanted to turn around. Terrific food, an unhurried pace. I barely saw the place, because Sara and I sat in her back garden by the river and talked for hours. Go to Fabriano. Stay a few days. Do everything Sara tells you.

Gillian writes Gillian Knows Best, the guides I actually send to friends landing in Italy next week: where to eat, stay, and park, with maps, from someone twenty years in. Subscribe to Gillian here.

Her whole piece on this part of the Marche region is here:

Trip report: Le Marche-Part 2

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Three towns, three writers who’d know. I’ll do posts like this more often.

Your turn. If there’s an Italian town you’d defend to anyone who’d listen, the one you send people to instead of the famous neighbor down the road, reply and tell me. The best ones end up here, with your name on them.