Jousts, living nativities and an opera festival
In the Marche almost every village has its re-enactment, and Ascoli has run a quintana joust since the fifteenth century.
Here the festivals are village affairs and there are many of them: the region has almost two hundred municipalities and nearly all have a re-enactment, a food fair or a palio. For campers they are the cheapest and most interesting evening of the summer.
The Quintana of Ascoli
Twice a year, in July and August, Ascoli Piceno puts fifteen hundred costumed participants into its squares and then six riders charge a moving target in a tilting field. The procession passes through Piazza del Popolo and is one of the most carefully staged historical spectacles in Italy.
The Macerata Opera Festival
The Sferisterio at Macerata was a nineteenth-century arena for a ball game played with an arm-guard; since the nineteen twenties it has been an open-air opera house with acoustics reckoned among the best in Europe. The season runs in July and August, and you sit on stone tiers under the sky.
The others
The Palio de lo Daino at Mondavio, the Contesa del Secchio at Sant'Elpidio, the Cavalcata dell'Assunta at Fermo on 15 August. At Gradara they re-enact Paolo and Francesca. In summer the ports hold fish fairs, and at Frontone there is the pit-cured cheese festival.
Winter
At Genga, inside the Frasassi gorge, the largest living nativity in the world is staged, with hundreds of participants among the rocks. It runs between Christmas and Epiphany and must be booked.