Le Marche + San Marino
Friday
For a quick weekend escape from Naples, we took a Friday off and headed up to the Marche region of Italy, somewhere we had never been before. One of the twenty regions of Italy, Le Marche is in the central part of the country and is situated between the Adriatic Sea and the Apennine Mountains. On the recommendation of a good friend, we booked a stay at Relais Cocci Grifoni, a wine resort that is connected to the Tenuta Cocci Grifoni winery. The drive from Napoli took about 4.5 hours but was beautiful and took us through several small towns, rather than just being on the highway.
We arrived at the hotel around 1:45pm and were luckily able to check into our room early. I cannot overstate how beautiful this property is, both in the surrounding countryside (think rolling hills of Tuscany with views of the snow capped mountains Sibillini Mountains) and in the accommodations themselves which are in a 19th Century farm house. It is a small hotel and when we were there, we saw maybe a total of six other guests. We ate dinner at the hotel both Friday and Saturday night, one of which was a tasting menu paired with the Cocci Grifoni wines. The staff at this hotel was kind, accommodating, generous, and warm. We felt incredibly well taken care of for our entire stay.
We spent Friday afternoon playing in the pool (there are two on the property) and then had an early dinner before heading to bed. We stayed in the Cruciano suite, which was incredibly spacious and worked well for us because my son was able to sleep on a pull-out couch in another room. When we go back, I will definitely try to book one of the suites that faces the mountains and the sunset, if only for the views, but I don’t think you can go wrong with any of the rooms.
Saturday
One of our primary reasons for heading north was to finally check out San Marino, the small republic and independent micro-state in north-central Italy. It was just over 2 hours away from our hotel so we decided to make a day trip out of it. We wanted to explore the capital, a medieval walled city, that sits on the slopes of Mount Titano. The drive was easy, even with a few road closures. However, when we got closer to the history city center of San Marino, we realized we had two issues: the parking lot I had mapped to was completely full, as were the surrounding spots, and our phones had stopped working. Because San Marino is not part of the European Union, our phone plans did provide coverage as soon as we crossed into San Marino. This is definitely a time I wished we had downloaded the area’s GoogleMaps offline so we still had dynamic access to them. Luckily, there are very clear signs pointing towards parking, the city center, and the cable car (or funivia), which was our destination, located in the Borgo Maggiore neighborhood. We managed to find parking in this lot with the camper vans and walked about 5 minutes uphill to the cable car station.
The cable car was a quick, easy, affordable, and fun way to get up to the city center of San Marino. Round trip tickets for 2 adults were €10 and kids under 120cm/4ft ride for free (I was dismayed to see that my giant of a four year old is just barely under that). There was a long line at the ticket booth, but it moved quickly. The cars were going every 15 minutes and there was a board clearly displaying a countdown for when the next one was leaving. There were also a bar and bathrooms in the station. I would definitely recommend buying your roundtrip ticket at the base station because we did not see anyone selling tickets when we came back down.
The cable car will bring you up to San Marino and let you off here, near an open piazza and panoramic terrace. We had lunch reservations at 1pm so our first plan was to walk to the castles, or towers, and do the panoramic trail that connects them. Signs in San Marino were very clear and easy to follow (which helps if your phone isn’t working) but there was also public Wi-Fi throughout the city center. We made our way through the medieval streets to La Prima Torre (Guaita). It seemed like everywhere in this city there were beautiful terraces or viewpoints, which only makes sense, because the surrounding landscape is breathtaking. We then continued on to the La Seconda Torre - Cesta. This walk was probably my favorite part of our day afternoon spent in San Marino, especially the view of the second castle after you walk under the gate and start on the skinnier pathway towards the tower.
You can go into both of the castles, but we decided not to as my son didn’t seem particularly interested and we had a lunch reservation to get to. Luckily, nothing is spread far out since the capital is so small, so we didn’t have to rush back to lunch. We backtracked along the path and stopped to let my son pick out a toy at one of the many, many tourist trap type shops we had passed.
We had lunch at La Terrazza. I made a reservation over email and requested a table with a view. They said they couldn’t guarantee anything but would note our preference. We were very pleased that when we got there, we had a table right along the edge of the balcony with a beautiful view of the landscape, Piazza della Libertà, and the Palazzo Pubblico della Repubblica di San Marino. Great food and beautiful views. It looked like when it’s warmed out they also have a fully outdoor terrace that faces the mountains.
After lunch, my son had the overtired zoomies so we started making out way back to the cable car, with a few stops along the way to check out shops. A lot of the shops were selling things similar to what I can buy back home in Naples (leather purses and jackets) or designer goods (Liu-Jo, Prada, Michael Kors, etc) at lower rates because the country is tax-free.
We got back to the car and were able to easily find our way to the highway to head back south, turning on GoogleMaps as soon as our cellphone plans kicked back on. San Marino was beautiful and I’m glad we went, but I definitely think this can just be a day trip if you are traveling around this area already.
We made it back to our hotel with some daylight left so we threw on our bathing suits and played in the pool. As it turned out, the hotel was doing a tasting menu that evening, pairing dishes with their wines. We decided to stay at the hotel again for dinner so we could try more of the wines, and we were both thrilled with this decision. The dinner, plus their delicious wines, was one of the best dinners we have had in Italy. Plus being able to sit outside next to the pool, watching the sunset over the mountains, didn’t hurt anything. All of the food and drinks served at the hotel are either produced on the property or are sourced from other local, small businesses. We had pork for dinner, and the manager of the hotel pointed out which farm on the hillside the pork had come from. At breakfast, we watched them go into the garden to pick the herbs to use as garnish on our eggs. Everything was fresh, thoughtfully curated, and delicious.
Sunday
To say we were all heartbroken to leave (not just my son who didn’t want to get out of the pool) would be an understatement. The weekend felt incredibly relaxing and refreshing, which is something many of our trips do not leave us feeling, as we are go-go-going non-stop. After another fantastic breakfast, we again threw on our bathing suits and headed for the pools. We stayed outside until we needed to head to our room to shower and change before check out, which was at 12pm. While hanging out by the pool, we also got our wine order sorted for what we wanted to take home not only for us but for the friend who recommended this beautiful property. They were able to pack up all the wine and have it ready to load into our car when we checked out. They even accommodated doing three separate orders, so we could keep our records straight of what was for us, for our friend, and for my mom, for whom we were also picking up wine. We hugged the owner and left with full hearts. I don’t even think we had made it out to the main road before we started talking about when we could realistically come back up here again.
To break up our Sunday drive, we decided to stop at the Abbey of Montecassino on the way back to Naples. It was about 3.5 hours from where we were in Marche and would leave us with about an hour and a half drive home. We stopped to get one of my favorite Italy roadtrip staples: an Autogrill lunch (Autogrills are gas stations but also a restaurants toy store, and convenience store rolled into one) and then headed back south. The drive between the hotel and Montecassino was, to say the very least, spectacular. The mountain views alone were worth this detour, rather than heading straight back to Naples.
The Abbey of Montecassino is a Benedictine monastery, founded in 529 AD by Saint Benedict. However, the abbey you can visit today is not the original abbey, but has been almost completely rebuilt after it was destroyed in the Battle of Montecassino in World War II. The drive up to the abbey was full of switchbacks, which only makes sense given how far up we had to drive to actually reach the abbey. Parking was €3 for the entire day and entry into the abbey and the attached museum were free (likely because it was the first Sunday of the month). Much to my partner’s dismay, we can’t really do sites like this at the pace he wants to (slow, slow, and slower) because our four year old isn’t as interested in looking at artifacts or in being constantly reminded, “this is a sacred space so we need to whisper.” As he ran out of the cathedral doors, he shouted an elated, “YAY!” because he was so proud of himself that he had stayed quiet and only whispered for the entire time that we talked through both the sanctuary and the crypts. This is a huge leap from the first year we lived here, when we went to Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and he kept yelling to hear his own echo.
We did what we could to take in the artifacts in the museum, asking my son what his favorite was or talking to him about the paintings, then headed out. We made sure to stop in their gift shop to buy honey and jam then walked back down to the car. It was a great way to break up the drive, move our bodies for about an hour, and then hop back in the car to finish our drive home.
For more info about the Abbey of Montecassino, I recommend checking out their Facebook page. You can also read more about the Battle of Monte Cassino here.
