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Pale stone above the sea

[hotel_seeport] Duomo di San Ciriaco

Pale stone above the sea

Duomo di San Ciriaco

The Duomo di San Ciriaco commands Ancona from the Guasco hill, the highest and oldest point of the city. Here stood the Greek acropolis. Then a temple to Aphrodite. Then an early Christian basilica. The current cathedral, consecrated in 1189, rises above these layers, fusing Romanesque forms with Byzantine influences into something compact, essential. The façade in Conero stone is restrained. A portico supported by lion-bearing columns introduces the interior. The central rose window filters light with discretion. Nothing is excessive. The forecourt is already a panorama. The port opens below, the quays laid out like thin lines, the Conero headland closing the horizon. For centuries this cathedral was a reference point for sailors. A fixed mark visible from the sea, before it was ever a place of worship. Inside, the space is gathered but solemn. The Greek-cross plan is covered by a twelve-sided dome that lightens the whole. The columns come from earlier Roman buildings. The crypt holds the relics of San Ciriaco, patron of the city, and the Blessed Giana. Over the centuries the Duomo has endured restorations, seismic damage, conservation work. And yet it holds a rare coherence. From here the whole geography reveals itself: the port, the hills, the line of the Conero. The Duomo is not only a religious monument. It is a point of orientation. It is roots. Ancona, seen from San Ciriaco, appears for what it is: a city suspended between stone and water.

To get there, you climb. Always. 

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A geometric island in the port

[hotel_seeport] Mole Vanvitelliana

Mole Vanvitelliana

From the sea it seems to float. A regular perimeter suspended above the harbour water. The Mole Vanvitelliana, designed in the 18th century by Luigi Vanvitelli, was built as a lazaretto. A place of control and waiting for men and goods arriving by sea. A sanitary threshold, before it was ever an architectural one. Its pentagonal form is rigorous. Rational. An artificial island connected to the mainland by a bridge. Inside, a large central courtyard. Around it, arcades that trace a constant rhythm of arches and shadows.

 A geometric island in the port

From sanitary outpost to cultural space. Today it holds exhibitions, events, the Museo Omero. But the structure keeps its severe, almost monastic identity. To walk beneath the arcades is to pass through centuries of port history. The thick walls hold the cool. Light falls cleanly from the courtyard. The horizon of the sea is sensed beyond the walls. Ancona is a city of departures and returns. The Mole is its concrete symbol.

Over time, its purpose shifted.

The living soul of the old city

[hotel_seeport] Mercato delle Erbe

Mercato delle Erbe

The eye lingers on the Liberty lines, the rhythm of the arches, the time that passes between stalls of fruit, vegetables and local produce. But this building is something more: a place where architecture speaks of memory and transformation.

In the heart of Ancona, along Corso Mazzini, the Mercato delle Erbe stands with its iron and cast-iron structure.

In the 1920s, Ancona already had an open-air herb market. A lively place, full of daily exchange. Then came the idea of sheltering it. An architectural and urban solution that would turn a social space into a protected, light-filled environment, still open to the passage of people.

A roof that does not obscure the past.

Workers from the nearby Ancona shipyard melted down and repurposed that metal to shape the great arches that still support the building today. The result was a kind of covered piazza: the interior is vast, open, with filtered light that lets the market breathe. The structure, made up of four large latticed arches, rises to a double height, its rhythms of iron and glass reaching upward as if trying to capture the light.

In 1926, the structure was built using recycled iron and cast iron, not just any metal, but material recovered from Austro-Hungarian ships ceded to Italy as reparations for damage sustained during the First World War, including the battleship that had shelled the city in 1915.

Today the Mercato delle Erbe remains central. The stalls carry the scents of Le Marche. People linger. Some buy, some talk, some move slowly between the fruit stalls and corners of quiet authenticity. It is a place of daily life, real encounters, exchanges of voice and smile. And as the historic centre of Ancona renews itself, the Mercato delle Erbe remains a point of reference, a draw for those who love the unpolished and the genuine. Not just a covered market. A social space, a place of rootedness and historical witness.

An urban experience. 

Mercato delle Erbe

A stone that faces the sea

[hotel_seeport] Monumento ai Caduti

Monumento ai Caduti

Piazza IV Novembre is a place of passage and reflection, where the urban fabric opens toward the sea in a solemn gesture. Here the Monumento ai Caduti stands like a circular temple of Istrian stone, asking you to stop, to feel the weight of the stories it carries. The monument is not only an architectural form: it is a privileged vantage point on what the sea has meant for this city. Built in the 1920s, its circular plan evokes the idea of wholeness and continuity, drawing the eye from the port to the high coast.

A stone that faces the sea 

To walk up its steps is to make a symbolic gesture: climbing slowly, the way one does when trying to make sense of memory. The natural theatre of the city opens before you, the profile of the hills and the uneven mosaic of rooftops; below, the sea traces its pattern of light.

[hotel_seeport] Grotte del Passetto

Grotte del Passetto

The Grotte del Passetto open at the base of the cliff, beneath the Passetto neighbourhood. Small shelters carved into the rock, coloured doors facing directly onto the Adriatic. It is the grottaroli who shaped them over time. Fishermen, men of the sea, quiet custodians of a tradition that never sought the spotlight. Every grotto is different. Some stripped bare. Others attended to in every detail. Wood, nets, boats hauled out of the water.

A way of life.

There is no elegant promenade. Just cliff, wind, salt settling on every surface. The city stays up above, distant. Down here, the relationship with the water is direct. The grottos are not a constructed attraction. They are adaptation. The practical intelligence of seafaring people, passed quietly down through the generations.

The sea is close here. Very close.

As you descend toward the sea, Ancona changes tone. It becomes rougher.  

The green curve above the sea

[hotel_seeport] Monte Conero 

Monte Conero 

Ancona is sea. But it also has a mountain. One that extends southward while remaining the easternmost point of the city. Monte Conero is headland and forest, white rock and paths that suddenly open onto hidden coves. An exception along the Adriatic, usually so linear. Here the coast rises, articulates itself. You climb through holm oaks and pines. The scent is Mediterranean. The air shifts. From above, the eye takes in beaches like Mezzavalle and Le Due Sorelle, the water shifting from green to turquoise.

The green curve above the sea

It offers trails for experienced walkers and gentler paths for those who simply want a pause in the green. Looking back toward Ancona, you understand its position: a city sheltered on one side, open on the other. The Conero is both barrier and embrace.

The Conero is balance, not harsh mountain. A decisive rise, but the line stays soft.

When green meets the sea

[hotel_seeport] Parco del Cardeto

Parco del Cardeto

This vast green lung, spreading across the hills of Cappuccini and Cardeto with a crown of Mediterranean scrub, is a place where nature and the inner self enter into a slow, deep conversation. Walking here means gradually dropping into a different rhythm: the scent of broom mingles with honeysuckle, paths wind between cypresses and snapdragons, and every bend opens a new view over the city and the waterline. You breathe the wind coming in from the port, you hear the pulse of the waves below, and you realise that the world can be vast and intimate at the same time. The Cardeto is far more than a park: it is an archive of ancient stories. Where the land drops sharply toward the sea, you find traces of lives and civilisations that have crossed centuries. The Campo degli Ebrei, one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Europe, stretches out with its headstones facing Jerusalem, evoking memory and a deep bond with time. A little higher up, the fortifications of the Bastione di San Paolo hold tunnels and underground spaces that speak of an era when the city braced itself against the winds of the world. And then there is the old lighthouse, a silent 19th-century guardian that still offers wide, rare views over the city and the coast, as if to remind us that Ancona has always been a meeting point between land and sea. Walking here is an invitation to slow down, to observe rather than simply look. Some say you can surprise a peregrine falcon at dusk at the Cardeto, or a cormorant in the early morning light. Others simply stand in silence and listen to how the world breathes, up here above the Adriatic.

A sweep of green above the Adriatic. 

Seeing with other senses

[hotel_seeport] Museo Tattile Statale Omero

Museo Tattile Statale Omero

The Museo Omero, housed in Ancona's Mole Vanvitelliana, was born from a simple and radical idea: making art accessible to those who cannot see. But to reduce it to that would be to miss the point entirely. Here, the gesture changes the moment you step inside. Hands become instruments of knowledge. Surfaces are explored slowly. Marble, bronze, plaster. Shapes reveal themselves through touch, not through distance.

Some things are understood through touch.

Reproductions of great masterpieces of classical and modern art live alongside original works made to be touched. No barrier. No glass in between. The experience is physical. Direct. In the silence of the rooms, a different kind of concentration takes hold. You listen to the descriptions, follow the contours with your fingers, reconstruct in your mind what your eyes cannot reach. The Museo Omero is not just about inclusion. It is a shift in perspective. An invitation to everyone, sighted and not, to slow down and reconsider the way we approach art. This is Ancona at its most contemporary. Sensitive. Attentive. Deep.

This is a museum that asks for time. And attention.

Not everything is meant to be seen. 

Some things are understood through touch. The Museo Omero, housed in Ancona's Mole Vanvitelliana, was born from a simple and radical idea: making art accessible to those who cannot see. But to reduce it to that would be to miss the point entirely. Here, the gesture changes the moment you step inside. Hands become instruments of knowledge. Surfaces are explored slowly. Marble, bronze, plaster. Shapes reveal themselves through touch, not through distance.This is a museum that asks for time. And attention. Reproductions of great masterpieces of classical and modern art live alongside original works made to be touched. No barrier. No glass in between. The experience is physical. Direct. In the silence of the rooms, a different kind of concentration takes hold. You listen to the descriptions, follow the contours with your fingers, reconstruct in your mind what your eyes cannot reach. The Museo Omero is not just about inclusion. It is a shift in perspective. An invitation to everyone, sighted and not, to slow down and reconsider the way we approach art. This is Ancona at its most contemporary. Sensitive. Attentive. Deep.

Titian and Crivelli, right in the city centre

[hotel_seeport] Francesco Podesti Civic Gallery

The Pinacoteca Civica Francesco Podesti holds works that tell the story of Le Marche, and beyond. Paintings from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, altarpieces, luminous canvases, portraits. Far from overwhelming, this is a niche museum, in every sense. Its rooms invite a slow visit: from gilded Gothic panels to 15th-century polyptychs, from Renaissance altarpieces to neoclassical and Romantic painting. Among its treasures are key works of the Venetian and Marche Renaissance: from Titian's monumental Pala Gozzi, one of the master's earliest signed works, to Carlo Crivelli's Madonna and Child, Lorenzo Lotto's Sacra Conversazione, and the intense colours of Guercino. And then there is Francesco Podesti himself, to whom the gallery is dedicated. A 19th-century painter from Ancona, a leading figure in Italian historical purism. His works carry a narrative, learned quality, deeply tied to the cultural climate of his time.

Francesco Podesti Civic Gallery 

Travel notes for those who want to discover Le Marche, one day at a time.

[hotel_seeport] Emotions between wines and villages 

Travel notes for those who want to discover Le Marche, one day at a time.

Emotions between wines and villages 

Our Sommelier Roberto Cecchetti has put together itineraries that reveal their truest magic when you arrive in the right mood. Because Le Marche really does have a village and a wine for every state of mind.

Harvest time. Time to gather what the land has quietly been preparing. 

Beyond the coast's spell, the soft hills of the interior open their arms. Among them, Camerano, with its caves carved into sandstone. A labyrinthine, mysterious world beneath the city streets, where Templar symbols, Masonic legends, pagan temples and partisan stories are all woven together. A parallel dimension of extraordinary power.

Wandering through the villages

Azienda Agricola Moroder (Località Monteacuto, 60129 Montacuto AN)

A long tradition. A family tradition, handed down from generation to generation since 1837. Love for the land and the territory has made the Moroder family a quiet point of reference for those who want to experience the true soul of the Conero.

The winery 

The sea breeze rules here. It caresses the chalky soil. The coast shifts from sandy to rocky, rising until it becomes a mountain: Monte Conero, with its esoteric charge. It is on the sinuous surrounding hills, at altitudes between 180 and 230 metres, facing south and south-east, that the vineyards frame Ancona's guardian.

The Terroir

Rosso Conero Riserva DOCG "DORICO" - Bold Elegance  -

The ruby, par excellence. Close your eyes: wild cherry, plum, blackberry, forest fruits, slowly giving way to liquorice, leather and tobacco. A pioneer. The first Marche wine, in 1988, to receive three glasses from Gambero Rosso.

The wine

Mood: enveloping

Named by UNESCO as a Creative City for Crafts and Folk Arts, Fabriano is known for its paper-making tradition and the watermarking of sheets, an invention introduced by its master papermakers in the second half of the 13th century. Don't miss Piazza del Comune, with the Palazzo del Podestà and the Loggiato di San Francesco, where the air still carries the quiet mood of a Marche village.

Belisario (Via A. Merloni, 12, 62064 Matelica MC)

Founded in 1971, it is the largest producer of Verdicchio di Matelica DOC. All its vineyards are within ten minutes of the winery. Each label has its own reference vineyard.

The winery

The cool night winds of the Alta Valle Esina, combined with excellent sun exposure during the day, create unique temperature shifts that build a deep reserve of aromas, fine acidity, and perfectly ripened clusters.

Verdicchio di Matelica DOCG Riserva "Cambrugiano" - Persuasive Vibrations -

Close your eyes: flowers, a whisper of vanilla. Its savouriness stays in perfect balance. There is the quiet force of the hinterland here, and its softness only reveals itself to those willing to wait.

Mood: soft but sharp 

One of the most lively towns on the coast. A rich past that begins with the Gauls, who made it their capital on the peninsula. It reached its height under the Malatesta and Della Rovere families, to whom we owe the Rocca, still in remarkable condition. The Foro Annonario, with its circular neoclassical arcade, is the beating heart of the daily market: fruit, vegetables, fish, voices.

Santa Barbara (Borgo Mazzini, 35, 60010 Barbara AN)

Ambassadors of Marche wine around the world, where passion meets vision, the Santa Barbara winery is housed inside an ancient monastery at the heart of the medieval village of Barbara.

On the hills of Barbara toward Serra de’ Conti, Montecarotto, Arcevia and up to Morro d'Alba and Cupramontana, the clayey, water-rich soils host vineyards on a strip of land held between the Adriatic to the east and the Apennines to the west. With vines between 25 and 40 years old, the rows yield wines of great depth from both native and international grape varieties.

Merlot "Mossone" - Velvety Presence -

A warm wine. Close your eyes: blackberry, liquorice, vanilla, coffee and chocolate. The smell of a fire lit in an autumn house, raising a glass to the silent leaves falling lightly outside.

Mood: longing for home

Birthplace of the great Emperor Frederick II, Jesi is a real gem, defined by its 15th-century city walls by the celebrated military architect Francesco di Giorgio Martini, who also designed the Palazzo della Signoria. Renowned for its many palaces where Renaissance and Rococo coexist side by side, the town is also celebrated for its cultural life, centred on the Teatro Pergolesi and the Pinacoteca Civica di Palazzo Pianetti, with its breathtaking stucco gallery and works by Lorenzo Lotto.

Colonnara (Via Mandriole, 6, 60034 Cupramontana AN)

Founded in 1959 in Cupramontana, the Verdicchio capital since 1939, it now counts over a hundred member winegrowers who have spent decades tending their vines with care and rigour. It produces all the main regional DOC wines.

The historic vineyards lie on the right bank of the Esino river, across the gently sloping, well-exposed hillsides of Cupramontana, Apiro, Staffolo and San Paolo di Jesi. At an average altitude of 450 metres above sea level, the grapes arrive at harvest in perfect condition.

Ubaldo Rosi Brut Metodo Classico Millesimato Riserva Verdicchio DOC  - Absolute Nobility -

Close your eyes: bread crust, with echoes of bay leaf and almond blossom. The lightness of silk.

Mood: regal

We are here to help you live something you won't forget, following your instincts. To guide you through the wonders of Le Marche, whether that means food, wine, villages or landscapes, and to point you toward the hidden corners that don't appear on any map. Tell us what you're looking for. We will build something for you. With you. Around you.

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Harvest time. Time to gather the fruits of patient work, to surrender to the scents and sensations of this land and let it speak to you in your own language. Our Sommelier Roberto Cecchetti has put together a series of itineraries that reveal their truest magic when you arrive in the right mood. Because yes, Le Marche really does have a village and a wine for every state of mind.

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[hotel_seeport] Visita in cantina

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Visita in cantina

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In the city of two suns, between the iron of the port and romantic views falling straight into the sea.

[hotel_seeport] Experiences & surroundings 

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The sea enters the city, winding between the piers, reflecting off the façades, following the eye all the way to the Conero. You walk between Roman layers and contemporary perspectives, between the profile of the Cathedral of San Ciriaco and the open breath of the sea. 

From the SeePort, everything is close: the old port, the streets of the centre, the blue horizon. Experiences begin here.

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Ancona

A Collection of Boutique Hotels with different personalities. Enchanting worlds in Italian destinations to experience slowly.

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