If Ascoli Piceno is one of Italy’s top hidden treasures (and it is), then little Offida, population just over 5000, has to be one of Italy’s top villages. It is a town of lace makers. It has one of Italy’s finest churches, its interior awash in frescoes dating from the 13th century.

Some of Italy’s best and lesser known white wines are grown just outside the city limits—and the Piazza al Popolo is full of great architecture, including one of those old, 19th century theaters, cute as a bug’s ear, responsible for entertaining the population before the discovery of radio waves.