Visit to Ascoli Piceno
The town lies at the confluence of the Tronto River and the small river Castellano, in a hollow 153 metres above sea-level. Ascoli is a very interesting and fascinating town, founded several centuries before Rome by an Italic population, the Piceni, that around 1000 BC settled in the area between the Foglia River and the Pescara River and during the 5th Century displayed all its splendour. After the decline of Piceni civilization, Ascoli was conquered by Rome and then by the Ostrogoths, the Lombards and Federico the 2nd troops, but it has always been an important and dynamic cultural centre. The symbol of the town is the marble called travertino, a grey-hued stone extracted from the surrounding mountains, used to build the central historical part of the city. The town is famous thanks to its Roman ruins, the two central squares, Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Arringo, the theatre and the Porta Gemina, the Roman Solestà Bridge, the Vesta Temple and the mosaic floor tiles, ruins of patrician houses, now stored in the Archelogical Museum. There are several precious Romanic Churches (S. Vittore Church, SS. Vincenzo e Anastasio Church, S. Angelo Magno Church) and monuments of the Middle Age (Lombard Palace), period in which Ascoli Piceno was home to more than two hundred towers.
Its central Renaissance square, Piazza del Popolo (“Square of the People”) with the Palazzo dei Capitani del Popolo and San Francesco Church is considered the heart of the town, meeting point of the inhabitants and symbol of the history of Ascoli Piceno., whose examples can be admired in the Civic Art Gallery and Diocesan Museum too.
Ascoli Piceno is not only history, art and culture but folklore too, thanks to two important traditional events: the historical parade of the Quintana and the traditional Carnival.
