Ascoli Piceno

On Friday Bridget and I set off for Ascoli Piceno, where some of the Italian side of my family is from. It was a 3 1/2 hour bus ride from Rome. It was surprising riding through the countryside of Italy to get there, it looked a lot like Northern California, we were surrounded by mountains. It was breathtaking.

When we got to Ascoli it was nearing nightfall and so we went to locate our hostel. On the way however we got a bit distracted by all of the churches. A lot of them were open and we got to peak inside. We even stumbled upon an old baptistery that the town had reconstructed.


We found our hostel easily, the historic center of town is not very large. When we signed in with the woman at the desk, she recognized my last name. She spoke only Italian though, so we couldn't talk in depth about my family. Bridget and I ended up being the only people there and so we got the place to ourselves. We decided to regress to childhood and both grabbed top bunks. Below is a picture of the tower on the hostel building.


We then set off to the main square Piazza del Popolo. We spent about an hour or two drinking coffee and watching people go by, there was a lot going on around us. The next morning we returned to do some sketching and there were tons of families walking around the square with their children and lots of dogs.


When we woke up Saturday we decided to wander around a bit. We ended up at a few more churches and then found an old convent which had been turned into a library and gallery. We met some very nice people there, who gave us a lot of background on the building and the area. One of them spoke French so Bridget could easily converse with him, and the others spoke a little English. We found out there was an architecture school on top of one of the hills and so we climbed up to see it. Unfortunately it was closed but we sat and sketched the view.


On the way down we found and architecture/art bookstore and were able to converse a little with the owner. Afterwards we ate some lunch and then wandered around town some more. Around 4:00 we walked back to the bus station and started the trek back to Rome.

nuns: 94 priests: 39