The colours of Palazzo Romani Adami

I am often asked for special places to stay, and here is a wonderful palazzo, sensitively restored by the family to create comfortable apartments to rent by the day or longer. Each is painted beautiful colours; rose pink, lush apricot, deep acqua, lemon yellow, soft lilac, all a feast for the eyes, right in the heart of Fermo.

first plum blossom

La Madonna della Misericordia and La Signora with the key

I have found a beautiful fresco. I was visiting a house in the falling snow, my brave companions were damp, but enthusiastic and so we knocked on the neighbouring door to the church. An elderly signora in an apron appeared. She produced la chiave (the key) from which dangled a ribbon. She unlocked the church door and we entered a tiny interior and there above the alter was the painting I had heard about, La Madonna della Misericordia (Virgin of Mercy). It is, I believe a 15th century fresco by Lorenzo Salimbeni, dated 1404. I have sent word out to confirm. But what a find. As ever Le Marche reveals her treasures most quietly. La signora told us her two sisters were married here and an image of long ago summer weddings drifted past as the snow lay melting outside. How comforting to know that La Signora with the key and this finely depicted Madonna, cloak held out by angels so that folk can shelter beneath, watch over this quiet hamlet together.

Roma

I have just returned over the mountains from Rome. What always amazes me about the Eternal City is the easy-going way the ancient and the everyday inhabit the streets, tightly wedged together side by side. Elsewhere such monuments might be encased in a glass dome, impossible to touch, attached to a scholarly bookshop. But in Rome it seems you can move in beside an Emperor's temple, hang out your laundry next to a Corinthian column and simply get on with the task of urban living. Knowing Roma is there, as we live here in the Marche mountains, is a wonderful feeling.