HOTEL
The Hotel Claudiani  **** is  in a quiet narrow back street about three minutes walk from the historic main piazza of Macerata. It is a modernized building, all rooms are up-to-date with en suite facilities (showers) tv, air conditioning.   Dinner will be in nearby local trattorie.  An advantage is being able to stroll out on a summer evening into a buzzing university city centre with plenty of attractive bars, cafés and shops. Characterically of Marchigian city-centre hotels,  to get to our bus for daily excursions, we need to take an escalator starting about 15 yards from the hotel, down through the city walls to the road below.

LUNCHES AND DINNERS

We have lunch each day  in restaurants chosen for their attention to traditional cuisine, whether it be home-made pastas and grilled meat inland, or fresh fish on the coast. Including regional wines, lunches are not a fast-food occasion.  Included in the cost are lunches each day ( 5 ) and dinner on the first and last evening in a local trattoria, of which there are plenty to choose from on the other evenings – good food at a very reasonable price. Those on their own will be looked after.

Walking.  There is  some steep walking on cobbled streets.

Daily Coach Journeys.  There is , inevitably ,  time spent each day in the coach. Distances up and down dale are much more than as a crow might fly. However ,  we will make regular stops en route.

Flights and Advance Booking. We do not arrange flights.  Ryanair from Stansted may not be everyone’s idea of convenient travel but it is the only airline which flies direct from England into our area, to Falconara/Ancona airport.  There will be a private coach between the airport and the hotel, meeting the daily flight, at the beginning and end of the tour.

Confirmation of the Tour. Those who have booked to come on this tour will be advised as soon as the minimum number has been reached to guarantee that the tour will run.  A decision will be made at the latest on  April 1, 2010.  After that, the sooner you book, the cheaper the cost of the Ryanair flight.  Flights booked many months in advance, well before that date, can be so very much cheaper than later bookings that you may think it worth booking well in advance even at the remote risk of the tour being cancelled.

Usually the Ancona flight leaves Stansted at 9.50 and arrives at 13.00: returning, it leaves Ancona 13.30 and arrives Stansted 14.50. Of course flight times may be changed.

COST:   £ 1840 per person in double room  dual-occupancy, to include transfers from and back to Ancona airport, private coach travel, entrances, 5 lunches, 2 dinners. 

Single room supplement £190 

The cost  does not include the flight. The cost includes a contribution to Venice in Peril.

The Tour is accompanied by an Art Historian and a Tour Manager.

Information and Booking from John Hall Italian Journeys, 
Telephone 44 (0)20 8871 4747

RECOMMENDED READING

There are no books in English specifically on the history of the Italian Marches, although there is a new Guide to the Marche and San Marino by Ellen Grady.  The following books supply interesting general historical background to the development of cities in Medieval Italy.

Daniel Waley: The Italian City Republics.

John Larner: The Lords of Romagna. (not in print).  This refers to specific towns in the Romagna, which is the region north of the Marche.  It includes some towns in the Marche.  Excellent on the emergence of the signorie, on condottieri and power politics.

Peter Partner: The Lands of St.Peter. (not in print).  A magisterial history of the Papal State from the beginning to the early Renaissance, with many references to the Marche region.