Useful guides
Start from here to plan your stay in the Piceno area !
Living the Piceno is simple: just wander among the sea, the hills, the countryside and the mountains, follow the bell towers, on one side there is the sea, on the other there is the mountain.
Piceno-at-a-glance
A region in the plural : in central Italy, along the eastern-Adriatic coast there are two regions (the only two) declined in the plural, the Marche and Abruzzo (until 1963 it was called Abruzzi and Molise).
In the border area there are the provinces of Ascoli Piceno (in the south of the Marche) and Teramo (in the north of Abruzzo).
For the contiguity, for some affinities and for a part of history in common, someone proposed the creation of the "Marcuzzo" (Marche+Abruzzo), nd in the PortoDeiPiceni the territories of Ascoli Piceno and Teramo go hand in hand.
To the east, where the sun rises, there is the Adriatic Sea with a heavily man-made coastline but a gentle coast with sandy beaches.
To the west, where the sun sets, there are the Apennines with the Gran Sasso massif, the Monti della Laga and the Sibillini mountains.
East and west are about thirty kilometers away, so in less than an hour you can go from the sea to over 2,000 meters above sea level.
From north to south, narrow valleys alternate with watercourses (rivers and streams) and the hills, which slope down towards the coast.
On the vertexes of an ideal square there are the two chief towns Ascoli Piceno and Teramo (inland) and two most important coastal towns, San Benedetto del Tronto and Giulianova
On each peak of a mountain or hill, there is a town, town, village or hamlet (and each has at least one church with a bell tower in its center); each country has tried to "control" (for better or for worse, by hook or by crook) the other hills and valleys below, in some cases even the borders.
For this reason we have also invented "ascolesi" and "teramesi" people: the two terms do not exist in any vocabulary but neither many Sambenedettesi (inhabitants from San Benedetto del Tronto) nor many giulesi (coming from Giulianova) like to be called "ascolani" or "teramani" (which are the corrent terms): it is not only a football problem but a legacy of parochialism.
And indeed every town and village has its own story to tell.
There is no overpopulation: on an area of 3 thousand square kilometers, equal to the metropolitan areas of Rome, Milan and Turin put together (whose inhabitants are about 7 million), there are barely 300 thousand people.