Offida sits on a rocky spur above the Lama valley, carved by two small rivers on either side, enclosed by medieval walls. From a distance it looks like a promontory that grew a town. Up close, it is compact, unhurried, and stranger than it appears — a borgo where three distinct traditions have survived intact: a craft that requires years to learn, a wine that has taken decades to earn its reputation, and a carnival that is unlike anything else in central Italy.
Offida, Le Marche. Photo: italia.it
Piazza del Popolo
The centre of Offida is Piazza del Popolo, which has an unusual triangular shape — rare in a region where most piazzas are rectangular or square. The dominant building is the Palazzo Comunale, with a fifteenth-century loggia of thirteen travertine columns along its front and a brick portico with travertine capitals that runs the length of the ground floor.
Through the portico, unexpectedly, is the Teatro del Serpente Aureo — a nineteenth-century theatre of stuccos and gilded carvings, tucked behind the municipal building. It is the kind of thing you stumble onto and are not sure whether to believe. The name, the Golden Serpent, comes from an ancient local legend. The theatre is real.
The lace
Offida is the centre of the merletto a tombolo tradition — bobbin lace, worked by hand on a cushion with dozens of bobbins, a craft that requires years of practice and produces something that is recognisably Offida's own. The technique has been passed down through generations of women in the borgo, and it is still practised here.
Palazzo De Castellotti-Paganelli houses the dedicated Museo del Merletto a Tombolo, with a collection that traces the history of the craft and includes a path designed for blind visitors. The same palazzo holds the archaeological museum, the museum of popular traditions, and the civic picture gallery — a concentration of local memory in a single building.
Santa Maria della Rocca
At the edge of the borgo, on a steep cliff above the surrounding countryside, stands Santa Maria della Rocca — a Romanesque-Gothic church in cotto brick, built in 1330 on the foundations of a Lombard castle. The exterior is austere and slightly precarious-looking, perched on the rock face. The interior contains frescoes attributed to the Maestro di Offida, a 14th-century painter whose work is found in only a handful of places in Le Marche. They are not easy to forget.
The carnival
Offida's Carnevale storico is one of the oldest and most particular in Italy. The key event is the Vlurd — a procession in which the participants carry burning torches of reeds through the streets of the borgo on the last Tuesday of carnival. The origins are pre-Christian, the ritual is collective, and the effect is something between a festival and a ceremony. It takes place in February or March; if your visit overlaps with it, do not miss it.
The wine
The hills around Offida are Pecorino country. The Offida DOCG designation covers two wines: the Pecorino — an aromatic, mineral white made from a grape variety that was nearly extinct thirty years ago and has since been rediscovered — and the Rosso Piceno Superiore, a red blend of Montepulciano and Sangiovese that requires at least two years of ageing before release.
The Pecorino in particular has become one of the reference white wines of central Italy. The grape is ancient, the style is contemporary, and the combination of the local galestro soils and the elevation of these hills produces something distinctive enough to justify the attention it has received.
What to eat
The local speciality is the chichì ripieno — a focaccia filled with tuna, anchovies, capers, and roasted peppers. It has its own local festival in summer. For something sweet, the funghetti are small cookies made with anise, the flavour of the region (see also the anisetta at Caffè Meletti in Ascoli Piceno).
From Gelsomoro and Casa della Nonna Elsa
Offida is around 45 minutes by car from both our houses — inland and south, through the agricultural landscape of the Fermo and Ascoli provinces. It works well combined with a morning in Ascoli Piceno, or on its own as a half-day: the borgo is small enough to walk completely in an hour, which leaves the rest of the time for the wine and the food.
Offida
Province of Ascoli Piceno · Le Marche · 63073
~45 minutes from Gelsomoro and Casa della Nonna Elsa