Teatro Serpente Aureo and Assisi

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Teatro Serpente Aureo

   Offida sits on a ridge in the southern Marche, a small walled town of brick and stone looking across rolling hills towards the Adriatic in one direction and the Monti Sibillini in the other. In the arcaded town hall on the main square hides one of the region's many jewel-box theatres, the Serpente Aureo, the Golden Serpent, with its horseshoe of boxes, gilded decoration and painted ceiling. The Marche has dozens of these little opera houses, built when every proud town wanted its own stage, and this one is among the prettiest, small enough that you feel you are in someone's very ornate living room.

   Read the complete Teatro Serpente Aureo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Teatro Serpente Aureo is where the day begins. Next is Teatro Feronia.

2. 2. Teatro Feronia

   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.

   Read the complete Teatro Feronia write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Teatro Feronia comes up about 109 km into the recorded legs. Next is Assisi.

3. 3. Assisi

   From the valley floor Assisi looks like a long pale ribbon draped across the lower slope of Monte Subasio, and the colour comes from the mountain itself. The town is built of Subasio stone, a limestone that ranges from cream to rose, and in the evening light the whole place glows pink. It is, of course, the town of Francis, the merchant's son who gave away everything in the early thirteenth century and founded the Franciscan order, and of Clare, who followed him. The great basilica built over his tomb, begun in 1228, has two churches one above the other, and the frescoes inside, including the cycle of the saint's life traditionally attributed to Giotto, changed the course of European painting.

   Read the complete Assisi write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 195 km into the recorded legs you reach Assisi. Next is back through Teatro Feronia.

4. 4. back through Teatro Feronia

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Teatro Feronia write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Teatro Feronia, late in the day. Next is Teatro Serpente Aureo.

5. 5. Teatro Serpente Aureo

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Teatro Serpente Aureo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Teatro Serpente Aureo. That is the ride.