Culture / Nature.
Belfiore is a holiday venue for nature lovers, for those seeking peace and tranquillity and for anyone wishing to discover Italy with its rich history, art, and interesting towns.
Within walking distance of Montefortino you will find such picturesque villages as Palazzo and Piticchio. They lie at 1755 feet altitude, in the Arcevia town district, which is only 6 km away.
The community of Arcevia has a population of circa 6,000 and contains a pleasant old market square, all kinds of shops, restaurants to suit all tastes and a small regional hospital. In the centre of the town you will find various historic buildings including a small theatre.
Within 40 minutes drive you can visit Cagli, Pergola, and Sassoferrato. Larger towns less than an hour away, on quiet local roads, are Urbino (Old University and Palazzo Ducale), Pesaro (Rossini festival), Fano (fresh fish and beautiful shops), Senigallia (nearest beach), Jesi (Verdicchio wine) Frasassi (famous spectacular grottoes), and Ancona (shops, markets, a large port and plenty of sightseeing). Just a little further away are Gubbio, Cortona, Perugia and Assisi.
Birds around Belfiore
I visited Belfiore in May, undoubtedly the best month of the year to hear singing birds. This also means that some species will be less easy to find during other months of the year.
Very common species around Belfiore are house sparrow and its cousin the Italian sparrow. European serin, common starling, goldfinch, magpie, great and blue tit can also be seen regularly. In the tops of the high cipress trees the beautifully coloured common redstart sings its song. In the ‘truffle woods’ behind Belfiore lots of goldfinch, garden warbler, blackcap, as well as less easily spottable mediterreanean Sylvia-species such as sardinian and Dartford warbler. Regular cirl bunting is found on the fences behind the swimming pool.
In the valley to the south lots of nightingales, wren, blackbird and on and again the loud ‘laugh’ of the grey-headed woodpecker. From the woods, the melancholic song of the golden oriole can be heard practically all day, while at night the shrieks of hawk and sparrowhawk are heard. Another regular song heard from the woods is from the cuckoo.
Above Belfiore plenty of common swift all day, but the swallows that come for a sip of water from the swimming pool are barn swallow, with their typical blue shade. Around the pool occasional white wagtail as well. In villages around Montefortini common house martin, and even rock martin can be seen here in more mountainous regions higher up.
Note that crows are grey and black here, unlike ‘our’ black crow. Its place is taken here by the hooded crow. Around every churchtower the jackdaw can be seen.
In Gubbio we saw impressive numbers of black redstart, surprising since this species was not found in these numbers in any other village. Denser underwood in more moist habitats is the moment to run into the suddenly exploding song of Cetti’s warbler. We heard one near the coast in Portonovo. City parks (Gubbio, Urbino) with older and higher trees house nuthatch and tit-species like willow tit, that incidentally also showed itself on a Friday morning near Belfiore.
A special bird that may very well make its appearance in the olive orchards around Belfiore was only seen by us near Piticchio: the hoopoe, with its characteristic cinnamon-coloured head and black-and-white wings.
It always takes a bit of luck to spot birds of prey, but buzzard can be found circling above the woods by Belfiore most every day, and often frantically chased by hooded crow. A late night return from the Il Rustico restaurant gave us a barn owl. More special was a booted eagle passing by one morning.
 Ophrys apifera |
 Ohrys fuciflora |
 Ophrys sulcata |