Yes, pictures of more small Italian villages. This was our 3rd week in Italy, and of course we visited additional villages. These villages are all west of Fano, roughly north to south. If you start in Sant'Angelo in Lizzola and drive through Monteciccardo you get to Villa Ugolini. Villa Ugolini seems to be more of a cluster of homes rather than an actual village. At a curve on one of the back roads is the Chiesa del Divino Amore church, a few other buildings, and a bus stop.
The name of the bus stop is how we know what to call this little location. That, and the plaque on the side of the church that says:
In the year of Christ 1953, thanks to the munificence of Comm. Dr. Giorgio Ugolini, this little church was built. The numerous faithful who frequent it, on the 3rd anniversary of the benefactor's death as a perennial testimony of their gratitude. 15 September 1957
The church was not open, but looking through a window makes it look slightly confusing, with pews facing different directions.
A look back at the hills of Marche as we left:
Continuing south from Villa Ugolini and driving through Mombaroccio brings you to Cartoceto.
The road leads to a plaza (Piazza Garibaldi). Although the plaza is not called Piazza di Popolo, they make up for it by calling the city building Palazzo del Popolo.
We found it very interesting to see that they were repairing the village wall. The repaired area so far looks really nice.
Those stairs are just a tiny example of the stairs in Cartoceto. We saw an older woman and asked if the path we were was a dead-end or not (it was not). As we started up the set of stairs, she commented that there wasn't a need for a gym there since exercise was built into the city. In the distance of that last photo you can see another typical feature of the area: many olive groves. Cartoceto is the village where we had the olive pressing tour in 2018, with Gastronomia Beltrami.
There are definitely a lot of olive groves in the area, which make for pretty pictures.
Cartoceto is another location where the effective but difficult to work with glass insulators are used for the power grid.
We ate lunch at Gastronomia Beltrami. This young man is the son of Christiana, the woman who gave us the tour in 2018. She was not there initially but came by before we left and actually seemed to recognize Paul immediately when she saw him.
If you continue south from Cartoceto you arrive at Saltara. Paul's great-grandfather Nazzareno Lucarelli was from Cartoceto, and that Nazzareno and his wife (Paul's great-grandmother) Fannie lived in Saltara before emigrating to the United States. Saltara has a very attractive pedestrian entrance, although it is definitely not handicap accessible. (Not to worry, there are other entrances.)
Paul is at the top of this fancy staircase. You can see that the sky was partly clear and partly cloudy; all of these pictures were taken within about a half hour of each other.
The section of the village outside the walls is in a slight valley. There are olive groves on the hillside.
One of the advantages of being up high is that you get a good view of things you would not see from the road below. For instance, you can see that there are solar panels on the terracotta roof tiles of the house on the right. You can also see someone's laundry; Italy is much 'greener' than the USA in this regard; they seem to mostly air dry their clothing. After our previous trip to Italy, we started using a rack and drying our clothing here at home. You might be surprised at how much electricity your clothes dryer uses!
Large vehicles are not welcome in this town, or at least not on this particular street.
The village has a pretty central area. Rather than a traditional piazza, it is a small park.
Map of this page's locations plus Sant'Angelo in Lizzoa, Monteciccardo, and Mombaroccio.
Updated January 2024