Corinaldo

The walls come first. A near-complete circuit of medieval brick, roughly 912 m long, with bastions, towers and gates, rings Corinaldo, a hill town of about 5,000 people in the province of Ancona, inland Le Marche, set among the Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi vineyards. The circuit is among the most complete in the Marche. The town was largely rebuilt after 1367, when Pope Urban V authorised reconstruction following its destruction; in the late 15th century the Sienese military architect Francesco di Giorgio Martini enlarged the fortifications. For resisting the 1517 siege by Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere, Corinaldo was granted the title of città by Pope Leo X.

It collects labels: member of I Borghi più belli d'Italia, holder of the Bandiera Arancione quality mark, past EDEN destination. And still foreign tourists overwhelmingly cluster on the nearby Adriatic coast and at Urbino, leaving Corinaldo quiet.

At its heart runs the Scala della Piaggia, a steep staircase of 109 steps, with the Pozzo della Polenta, the "polenta well," at its midpoint, tied to a self-deprecating local legend that earned the Corinaldesi their nickname as the matti, the mad ones. The town is also the birthplace and shrine town of Santa Maria Goretti.

For the platform Corinaldo is a clean craft-village anchor: an intact brick-built borgo, a lesser-known wine zone (Verdicchio), a Slow Food product (lonzino di fico), and no mass tourism, provided you come in May–June or September rather than for the Halloween festival.

May–June and September are ideal: warm, dry, the vineyards green or harvesting, and the town near-empty of foreign visitors. Avoid August, when the inland Marche bakes. The one deliberate exception is late October, when the Festa delle Streghe, one of Italy's biggest Halloween events, fills the small medieval core with very large crowds (check dates each year). That festival is the opposite of the undertourism framing: come for it only if you specifically want the spectacle, and reserve far ahead. For the quiet town the page is about, choose spring or early autumn. Cellar visits in the surrounding Verdicchio estates are best arranged off-season, when producers have time; arrange them in advance whichever month you pick.

First, the constraint: there is no railway in Corinaldo, so the last leg is always bus or car. The nearest station is Senigallia, on the Adriatic Bologna–Ancona–Lecce mainline (frequent regional trains and some long-distance services). From Senigallia, local buses run to Corinaldo on weekdays, with limited weekend service (check current timetable). Ancona, the regional hub with the Aeroporto delle Marche at Falconara, is the natural gateway: the train Ancona–Senigallia takes about 15–20 minutes, then the bus onward, for a total of roughly 2h15 by public transport including transfers (check ahead). Public transport works but is infrequent; a car gives far more freedom in the surrounding Verdicchio hills. In short: train to Senigallia, then a bus or a short taxi/car hop up to the town.

All operators to check currency. In the historic centre, the Corinaldo Albergo Diffuso spreads rooms through the old town, the most characterful base inside the walls. Independent B&Bs in and near the walls include B&B Il Settimo Borgo, B&B Torre San Lorenzetto and B&B Palazzo Boscareto. Al Casolare is a combined albergo and ristorante. For a wine-country stay, Cantina Langelina is a Verdicchio and Chardonnay estate with rooms and a restaurant about 18 km from the coast; agriturismi such as Agriturismo Ricolando and Casalantico put you among the vineyards. Corinaldo works as a day trip from the coast, but staying the night gives you the empty early-morning and evening town, when the walls and the Scala della Piaggia belong to residents and the few who stayed.

The signature product is lonzino di fico, a Slow Food–recognised sweet "salami" of dried figs pressed with almonds and walnuts and wrapped in fig or laurel leaves; ask for it paired with an aged cheese and a passito. The wine to drink is Verdicchio, here in the Castelli di Jesi DOC zone: a crisp, structured white that ages better than its reputation suggests. Beyond that, the Marche staples carry the table: tagliatelle with ragù, the region's cured meats, and pecorino. Cellar tastings in the surrounding vineyards are the best way to put the wine in context; most estates take visitors by appointment, especially off-season. Eat slowly. This is a producer landscape, not a restaurant scene.

Walk the full 912 m circuit of walls and trace the towers and gates at golden hour, when the brick warms. Climb the Scala della Piaggia, all 109 steps, and pause at the Pozzo della Polenta to read the legend on the spot that gave the town its nickname. Visit the Sanctuary of Santa Maria Goretti and the town's churches; religious architecture carries a lot of Corinaldo's weight, and several interiors are Baroque or neoclassical rather than medieval, which is not what the walls prepare you for. Half a day covers the circuit comfortably. Do it twice, once early and once at dusk, and you will have seen two different towns.

The Civica raccolta d'arte Claudio Ridolfi occupies the former convent of the Augustinian hermits and holds sacred painting gathered from suppressed religious houses in the area, with work by Ercole Ramazzani, Gaspare Gasparini, Ridolfi himself and Domenico Peruzzini, alongside a substantial body of twentieth-century painting by Nori de' Nobili. The Sala del Costume e delle Tradizioni Popolari shows the ducal costumes worn in the town's historical pageant, sewn by seamstresses from the four rioni and reworked over successive years from sixteenth-century patterns, with the fabric-working tools set out beside them. The restored Teatro Carlo Goldoni runs a full season and is the main venue of the town's cultural life; check what is on.

The Contesa del Pozzo della Polenta is Corinaldo's own festival and the oldest historical reenactment in the province of Ancona: the four rioni competing at tug-of-war, bell-toss and archery, a costumed procession on the Sunday, and taverns serving polenta. It falls in high summer, around July, and dates shift, so check. Out in the hills, arrange cellar visits among the Verdicchio vineyards in advance, ideally off-season, and look out for lonzino di fico, the Slow Food presidium sweet of dried figs, almonds, walnuts and anise wrapped in fig leaves; the figs are dried after the late-summer harvest, the lonzino sold year-round. Four kilometres down the Cesano valley, the archaeological park of the Roman city of Suasa gives you a senatorial house of some three thousand square metres with around twenty mosaic floors, an amphitheatre among the largest in the Marche, and a museum of the finds at Castelleone di Suasa. The crowd-aware exception is the Festa delle Streghe at Halloween, one of Italy's biggest, and explicitly the high-traffic moment rather than the undertourism one (check dates). Otherwise the pleasure here is slow: a small, intact borgo to read on foot, with wine country at its gates.

• Language: Italian
• Currency: euro
• Plug: European type F/L
• Getting around: The streets are steep, cobbled and stepped — not easy for limited-mobility visitors or wheeled luggage
• Money: ATMs and cards work in town; cash is useful at the market and smaller producers
• Getting there: The town is doable as a day trip from the Adriatic coast, but the empty early-morning and evening borgo belongs to those who stay the night
• Mobile: Mobile coverage is good
• Nearest major hospital: Senigallia / Ancona