Sant'Agata Feltria is a small hill town in the upper Marecchia valley, with a castle on a rock, steep streets and one of the oldest wooden theatres in Italy. The Teatro Angelo Mariani dates from the early seventeenth century and has been rebuilt and restored over the centuries, with tiers of wooden boxes painted in soft colours around a small stage. It is named after Angelo Mariani, a nineteenth-century conductor who was a close collaborator of Verdi. The theatre is intimate, seating a few hundred at most, and it still hosts concerts and plays.
The town is known for another thing: truffles. Every October, on Sunday afternoons, Sant'Agata Feltria holds a white truffle fair, when the streets fill with stalls, the air smells of truffles and roasted chestnuts, and people come from all over the region. The Rocca Fregoso, the castle on its rock above the town, is a striking sight, with a children's museum inside. The surrounding valley, the Valmarecchia, is full of fortified villages: San Leo, on its cliff, where the adventurer Cagliostro died in prison, Pennabilli, home of the poet and screenwriter Tonino Guerra, and Novafeltria, the main town in the valley.
The riding here is superb. The roads climb through the hills of the Montefeltro with endless curves, dropping into valleys and climbing over ridges, with views of fortresses and villages on every peak. The surface can be patchy and narrow, and in places landslides have damaged the road, but traffic is light. The light in autumn is especially beautiful, with the oak woods turning gold and the hills soft and hazy. Summer can be hot in the valleys but cooler on the ridges, and winter brings fog and occasionally snow.
Sant'Agata Feltria has cafés and restaurants, but for fuel, Novafeltria, seven kilometres away, is the reliable choice. Local food includes truffles, of course, along with mushrooms, chestnuts, cheeses aged in pits in the ground, and pasta made by hand. The theatre's opening times vary, so ask locally. Afterwards, ride to San Leo, one of the most dramatic villages in Italy, and watch the sun set over the Montefeltro hills, with San Marino on its mountain in the distance.