Places to go

Ostra: the village on the doorstep

Five kilometres away sits a hill town with 1,200 metres of wall, nine surviving towers, and the supermarket you will be shopping at this week.

2 min read

Distance: approx. 5 km
Good for: Shopping, espresso, evening stroll
Market: Weekly market in the centre

Every holiday house has a village you drive to when the bread runs out. Ours is Ostra, and it repays staying longer than the shopping takes.

A town that existed twice

The name goes back to Roman Ostra, a settlement on the plain. Tradition has it that its inhabitants fled Alaric and the Goths at the start of the fifth century, climbed the hill of Monte Bodio and founded the place again up there. For the next millennium and a half it was called Montalboddo, until it took the ancient name back in 1881.

In the Middle Ages Ostra belonged first to Ravenna and became a free commune in the twelfth century. Conquests and destruction followed, but they spared part of the fortifications.

The wall

Around 1,200 metres survive, punctuated by square towers, nine of which still stand. You can walk around the outside, and as you do you get the view that gave the house its name: across the Misa valley and the ridgelines behind it.

Cypresses and the pool against the open Le Marche countryside — The view over the Misa valley, much as you see it from the house.

Practicalities

The village has a supermarket, a baker, a bar and a pharmacy: everything a self-catering week needs. The weekly market is the best moment for vegetables, cheese and olives.

And a curiosity for wine people: Ostra houses a museum of wine labels. Small, unexpected, and exactly the kind of sight you do not assume in a place this size.