Grande Anello dei Borghi Ascolani

The Grande Anello dei Borghi Ascolani (Grand Ring of the Ascoli Hamlets) was conceived during the 2020 lockdown, on the initiative of the Associazione Le Marche Experience, and was officially presented in the spring of 2021. The stated aim was to revive slow tourism in an inland area already tested by the 2016 earthquake: a hundred kilometres divided into seven stages, departing from and returning to Ascoli Piceno, through the municipalities of Venarotta, Comunanza, Roccafluvione, Montegallo and Acquasanta Terme. The route unfolds at the foot of four distinct mountain systems — the Ceresa group, the Monti Gemelli, the Sibillini and the Monti della Laga — tracing a ring that holds together different geographies while never straying from the historical orbit of the city.

The thread running through the route is not scenic but defensive: the path follows the network of castles that in the Middle Ages protected the ancient state of Ascoli, thirty-two fortresses once subject to its jurisdiction. Ruins, hermitages and walled hamlets punctuate the stages with a continuity that turns the walk into a reading of the land in overlapping layers. The seventh stage, leading to the Eremo di San Marco (Hermitage of San Marco), and the fifth, which passes the Abbazia di San Benedetto in Valledacqua (Abbey of San Benedetto in Valledacqua), are among the sections where this layering is most legible.

The gastronomic dimension of the walk is not confined to the products that the Piceno area exports so successfully — the oliva ascolana tenera DOP, pecorino cheeses, mountain cured meats — but emerges in the relationship between those products and the context in which they are still made. Walking the distance between Ascoli and its satellite hamlets means encountering that production where it makes sense: the upland pastures that yield the milk for the pecorino cheeses, the oak woods that have historically sustained pig farming, the terraced olive groves that mark the hillsides of the Piceno. The slowness of walking restores proportions that the paved road compresses.

The recommended seasons are spring and autumn, and the choice is not incidental: they coincide with the periods of greatest activity in the surrounding countryside, when the olive harvest or seasonal cheesemaking make visible processes that at other times remain latent. The walk also has a guidebook published by Giaconi Editore, available in Italian and English, which accompanies the route with historical and literary notes. A dedicated credential, on the model of the great European pilgrim routes, certifies the completion of the stages.