Bobbin lace and Santa Maria della Rocca
On a hill between the valleys of the Tesino and Tronto rivers, in the hinterland of Ascoli Piceno and San Benedetto, Offida is a charming medieval village, one of the "Borghi più belli d'Italia", famous for an ancient and refined craft: the merletto a tombolo, bobbin lace. Since the fifteenth century, the women of Offida have created, with patience and great skill, delicate lace of linen, cotton and silk, working on the "tombolo", a cylindrical cushion stuffed with straw, on which the design is fixed with pins, and moving at great speed dozens of wooden bobbins, the "fuselli", around which the threads are wound. Still today, in summer, you can see the lacemakers working at the doors of their houses, in the lanes of the village, and the Museo del Merletto a Tombolo tells the history of this art.
The village has a triangular main square, Piazza del Popolo, overlooked by the elegant fifteenth century town hall, with a portico and a loggia, which houses a small, splendid theatre, the Teatro Serpente Aureo, decorated with gold. At the edge of the village, on a rocky spur overlooking the valley, stands the most beautiful monument of Offida: the church of Santa Maria della Rocca, built in 1330 in brick, in Romanesque-Gothic style, with a large crypt decorated with frescoes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Offida is famous for its Carnival, one of the most original in the Marche, with the "Lu Bov Fint", a fake ox chased through the streets, and the "Vlurd", bundles of burning reeds carried in procession on Shrove Tuesday. The hills around produce the Offida DOCG wines, including the white Pecorino and Passerina.
Tip: visit the lace museum and buy a piece directly from the lacemakers; taste the Pecorino wine in the wine shops of the village.
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