San Severino Marche has one of the most unusual town squares in Italy. The Piazza del Popolo is an elongated ellipse, lined with arcades and palaces, and it was originally a market space outside the walls of the medieval town on the hill above. Today it is the heart of a town of eight thousand people in the valley of the Potenza river, in the inland Marche, and the Teatro Feronia stands on it, an elegant nineteenth-century theatre named after an ancient Italic goddess of fertility and freedom.
The town has a long history. The Roman town of Septempeda lay in the valley nearby, and its ruins can be visited. In the Middle Ages, the inhabitants moved up onto the hill of Montenero, where the old castle and the cathedral still stand, and the town later spread down into the valley. San Severino was home to a school of painters in the fifteenth century, the Salimbeni brothers, whose frescoes can be seen in local churches, and the Pinacoteca has works by Pinturicchio and others.
The Potenza valley runs from the Apennines down to the Adriatic, and the road along it is a pleasant ride, with hills on either side covered in fields and woods. From San Severino, roads climb into the mountains to the west, towards the Sibillini range and the high plateaus around Castelluccio, which are famous for their wildflowers in early summer. To the south, Tolentino, nine kilometres away, has the basilica of San Nicola with remarkable frescoes. The minor roads in the hills are winding and quiet, ideal for relaxed riding, though surfaces vary.
San Severino has fuel, shops and restaurants, and the arcades of the Piazza del Popolo are lined with cafés where you can sit and watch the town go by. The local cuisine is rich: vincisgrassi, a baked pasta dish like lasagne, and ciauscolo, a soft spreadable salami from the Marche. The area was affected by the 2016 earthquakes, and some buildings are still under repair. In the evening, when the lights come on in the square and families stroll under the arcades, the town has a warm and welcoming atmosphere.