2339 Porto Recanati to Giulianova

[QUOTE=greatscott]We have closed in on our "area of exploration" for house hunting. We like to Aso river valley and the area of Offida and Aquaviva Picena too.

We would love to hear what your favorite towns are in this area and why. We don't want to miss anything that could be interesting. At this point we only want to hear about the towns and what they have to offer. Not interested in talking about homes or prices specifically just about the local towns and people.

Thanks in advance!
John and Dee[/QUOTE]
hello John and Dee,yes nearly all the little towns along the ridges of the Aso valley are very pretty Ortezzano,Montalto,Campofilone, are particularly nice
and benefit from being a bit further inland from the coastal strip which i personally do not care for in that it's extremely urbanised,lousytraffic, railroad,motorway,state road, lots of terrible buildings went up from the fifties to the eighties with v.little in the way of urban planning.Whilst for v.occasional shopping,fish meal,odd day at the sea can be useful.The population towards thecoast has absorbed a lot of immigration and most of the crime in the region is carried out along the coastal towns.
On the other hand you wouldn'thave to go far inland ,You've mentioned Offida which is a lovely town in the heart of an important wine growing district
most of these more inland towns are in fact verysmall with even declining populations for this reason few host important museums/galleries and the like
but all have immense charm some lovely architecture and all during the summer-autumn hold their own festivals and events.From these towns in any case you are not far from some of the more important towns like Ascoli Piceno beautiful in their own right.If you're over in the spring/summer the local tourist organizations have usually managed to print their new events guides by May(!!) which could be useful

Thank you very much Sebastiano!

We are very happy to hear that Ortezzano,Montalto and Campofilone are some of your favorites! Several interesting possibilities we're seen in these areas.
Out of the three, which one stands out to you as special, and why? (You seem to have a very good eye, we love what you have done with your place, fantastic! We've heard rave reviews on your restaurant too!)

Do you know anything about Aquaviva Picena?

3 visits ago after 18 months of searching we met the estate agent to discuss the details of the compremesso.. to be informed that a new client had offered 25,000 euros more than us for the property.

We declined to get into a bidding war and left.:(

My chin was dragging on the ground as we drove down the 433. I commented to Dawn that possibly we had missed our chance of finding what we wanted.

Thank God she's the optimist...

"No way, look at this scenery". The sun had come out and everything looked lovely. "Let's turn off to the next village and have a gelato".

We turned off and went to Petritoli, wandered round it's narrow streets watching the preparations for a festa.

We happened to sit next to an English lady who asked us where we were from and if we were on holiday. We told her we were looking for a property and she laughed and said we were abviously as mad as her:D

We then toured around several towns and villages in the area and came to a road where we stopped in our tracks. Surrounded by Marche rolling hills we could see the mountains to our left and to our right down the valley you could just glimpse the sea.

The next day we went to another estate agent to see what he could offer. As usual it was the same dozen properties we had seen before. We described in fine detail what we wanted and he opened his desk to show us note details of a property which had just come on the market (in fact we had passed the owner in the street as we found out later).

This was obviously fate as we bought our current home (a converted barn) by queuing behind the owner trying to put it on the market. It also happened to be down the road we had stopped on the previous day.:eek:

Two trips later and we complete 1st Feb.

Sorry for rambling on....

Dave

Did I mention I love Val d'Aso:D

Dear Dawn and Dave,

What a lovely inspirational story!!!! Thanks for sharing it with us. Congratulations
on finding your home, Feb 1st will be here very soon!!!

Maybe we will pass you on the 433 on our way to look at those same 12 houses
we've seen over and over again too! :D And....with a bit of good luck our perfect place will come to us as well.

John and I will be renting for a couple of months in the area, and are looking forward to visiting with some of our fellow Marche forum members. We would love to hear any interesting stories about your town, about the markets, or anything else of interest!

What has the weather been like? Do you have any fruit trees?

Looking forward to meeting you,
Dee and John

It sounds as if you are concentrating on towns nearer the coast. We really like Moresco. It has beautiful views and is very picturesque and peaceful.

We overlook the Aso valley (looking at it right now!) but are nearer the mountains in Montefalcone Appennino which is a small town withe spectacular views to the sea and the mountains. You may have seen it when you were driving around as it is perched on a sheer cliff and can be seen for miles around. We already have one family of exiles from California :-)

I can talk about Porto Recanati and its area, with direct experience.
If you're looking for a town by the sea, the better places are Porto Recanati and the Conero Riviera (Numana, Sirolo, Portonovo).
The sea is at lower level compared to other italian locations, like Sardina, Puglia, Calabria or, across the Ardiatic, Croatia, but the beaches are very relaxing, clean and well organized, with a lot restaurants and bars by the sea that you can reach just crossing one or two streets from your house.
Porto Recanati is small, quite modern, while Numana and Sirolo are more pictoresque with historical roots and buildings.
Close to the sea there's plenty of wanderful towns: Recanati, Loreto, Potenza Picena, Montelupone, very nice, historical, with spectacular views to the sea and the mountains.
My advice is to have a trip for a couple of weeks, better in Spring, for visiting the coast and the inner zone.

Thanks so much for all your thoughts and recommendations! We're taking lots of notes and filing them with our color print outs of homes and webpages of various towns in the area. We have so much printed out, that I had to get a big wide case that has dividers with separate sections to use for different towns :eek:

We'll be dragging our research with us, and any additional information that will help us narrow things down is very much appreciated!

We do intend to rent for at least 2 months (more if necessary), and the reality is that it will take at least 30 to 60 days for an escrow to close here, so that will bring us to the area close to the Spring.

We would love to hear anything you think is important for us to know about any town. Again, thank you all so much for your help!!!

About towns and people in the area...
There is an interesting story by Rosebee and her buying a home near Servigliano.
Anyone looking at buying in this area should read what she has to say on the "Real Estate Agent's fee" thread.