Apecchio

A city of Guinness World Records. With the three-storey globe of peace, in which six hundred people can enter into, a suspended bridge supported by fourteen steel cables (the Bridge of Courage), Italy's narrowest alley hidden in its narrow streets,  its historic centre has a tree made with 150,000 buttons.

It is an ideal place to start a journey through time, starting with the discovery of skulls and dinosaur claws, where one may be lost between clear, sulphuric and mineral waters, in the presence of peaks where the eagle reigns.

Apecchio, with its 103 square kilometers of land, is the seventh biggest territory by extension of the province of Pesaro-Urbino. The origins are ancient: the stones tell of Umbrian, Etruscan, Roman and Celtic settlements, the dominion by the noble family of Count Ubaldini who left the coat of arms of his ancient house on many Renaissance works preserved in the area. First of all, the fifteenth-century Palazzo Ubaldini, with the Museum of Fossils of Monte Nerone, which leads into underground labyrinths. The collection of ammonites and about three thousand finds, including the rare dinosaur claws, make it one of the richest and most interesting museums in Italy.

In Apecchio the artistic monuments and the gentle palaces counteract the ancient rural buildings, towers and old water mills abandoned today. The characteristic bridge over the River Biscubio, with its elegant shape, leads to the old town and the Campanone, the clock tower that used to be the main entrance to the castle and which now houses the typical sixteenth century clock and the coat of arms of the Ubaldini family.

Not far away one can find the "alley" near the former Jewish quarter, which is said to be the narrowest of Italy. Now instead of the synagogue, we find the church of Madonna della Vita with paintings from the 17th century. In the 11th century, the sanctuary of the Santissimo Crocefisso was constructed, on the spot that was once the church of St Martin, dating back to the 11th century.

The genius of its inhabitants and the desire to challenge the laws of physics is impressed in the thirty-one-meter-long globe of peace, inserted into the Guinness Book of World Records. Made entirely of wood by the eclectic craftsman Orfeo Bartolucci, the giant globe is  on the hill of Colombara: divided into three floors, it can accommodate up to six hundred people “of all languages, cultures and religions."

The pacifist and multicultural soul of Apecchio combines with its love of the generous and luxuriant nature, green pastures and wooded outcrops, crystal clear streams and famous springs (such as the source of sulphurous water along the grassy path Viale di Velluto) , where it is not uncommon to see deer, goats and wild boar.

The area’s party spirit is expressed with the medieval festivities and plays, with the festival of bostrengo (a local sweet) and the exhibition dedicated to truffles. Each participant must indulge in a glass of beer, but provided it is produced by the artisan brewery of the area.