Fano is the town where the via Flaminia ended, and you can still see it: the Arch of Augustus stands at the end of a square, and anyone coming from Rome passed through it to reach the sea. It was called Fanum Fortunae, the temple of Fortuna, and of the Roman layout there remain the arch, stretches of wall and the grid of streets in the centre, which is still that of the castrum. But the Fano you remember is not the old town: it is the walk northwards, where the canal port opens into the dock, the fishing boats lie along the quay and the pier runs out to sea for almost a kilometre. At the end are the trabucchi, wooden platforms on piles with arms reaching over the water and a great square net lowered by winches, and two bronzes on the rocks looking at the sunset. It is twenty minutes on foot from the centre, and it is the thing that is worth the journey.
Sleeping
Stops and overnight stays
Three candidates, all from Park4Night and none of them seen by us. The first is six hundred metres from the centre and free; the other two are further out and far better equipped.
Area sosta di viale Kennedy
viale Kennedy, presso il cimitero, 61032 Fano (PU)
it is the closest of them all and costs nothing: twenty places with water, a dump point and waste collection, next to the cemetery. From here to the Arch of Augustus is six hundred metres on foot, and to the port a little more. It is quiet, but it is a car park shared with cars: it is not an area reserved for motorhomes, and that changes how much room you find and how far you can spread out.
the well equipped alternative to the south, towards Sassonia beach: it has everything, toilets, showers, electricity and wifi. Two and a half kilometres from the centre, so not quite a walk but nearly.
Strada Nazionale Adriatica Nord 43/B, 61032 Fano (PU)
the largest of the three, sixty-four places, on the main road north towards Pesaro. Handy for anyone arriving from that side or leaving the next day towards Urbino.
The old town is walked from end to end, and from the Arch of Augustus to piazza XX Settembre is three hundred metres
From the centre to the port is ten minutes on foot, and from the port to the head of the pier another ten: the whole walk, from the square to the trabucchi, is under half an hour
The pier is flat and wide, and you walk it as far as the green light at the end
The vehicle stays in one of the three parking areas: the one on viale Kennedy is six hundred metres from the centre and you walk in
Seeing
Sights
The Roman centre fits into three hundred metres, the port begins where the centre ends, and in between there is nothing to skip. Tap a marker on the map to open its entry below.
1
Arch of Augustus
Monument · free entry · 43.84308, 13.01450
the gate through which the via Flaminia entered the town, from AD 9, and the inscription dedicated to Augustus can still be read on the attic. The large central archway was for carts, the two side ones for people on foot. The top is cut off: in 1463 a cannon shot from Federico da Montefeltro, during the siege, took away the upper order, and what is missing can be seen drawn whole on the front of the church of San Michele beside it.
the surviving stretches of Roman wall, in brick, with round towers standing in the grass. They are the same circuit of which the arch was the main gate, and you walk alongside them on the way from the centre to the port.
the main square, with the Palazzo del Podestà and the civic tower on one side and the fountain of Fortuna in the middle, the goddess the town takes its name from. It is the place where you sit down.
the palace of the Malatesta, who held Fano for a century and a half, with the Corte Malatestiana in front of it. Inside are the archaeological museum and the picture gallery. Opening times and tickets are asked for on the spot.
the fortress Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta had built in the middle of the fifteenth century, between the centre and the port. There is a park around it.
the channel that runs into the town, with the fishing boats moored along the quay and tyres hung on the walls as fenders. Fano is still a working port and not only a marina, and in the evening you can see it.
the anchor and the flag at the head of the pier, where the walk towards the lighthouse begins. It is the point where the town ends and the port starts.
the pier runs out to sea for almost a kilometre and ends with a green light, and along the last stretch stand the trabucchi: wooden platforms on piles with a hut in the middle and arms reaching out over the water, from which a great square net is lowered and raised. They are not shelters but fishing machines, and they were used to fish when the sea was too rough to go out in a boat. They are the northern cousins of the trabocchi of Abruzzo, and in the Marche the technique is called pesca al quadro, from the shape of the net: which is why some sources call the structures themselves "quadri". The pier takes its name from them. On the rocks around there are two bronzes looking out to sea.
the beach south of the port, of shingle, with the bathing establishments in a row and the seafront behind. North of the port is the Lido instead, which is sand: these are the two beaches of Fano, one on each side of the canal port.
Three appointments that fill the town in three different seasons, and only one of them is in summer.
Carnevale di Fano
February
the oldest in Italy, documented since 1347. Three Sundays of parades of allegorical floats and the getto, the rain of sweets thrown from the floats onto the crowd: about eighteen tonnes a year, and it has been done since 1765. At the tail of the procession comes the Musica Arabita, which since 1923 has played bins, jugs and other kitchen implements; on the last Tuesday the Pupo, the caricature of the figure of the year, is burnt in piazza XX Settembre. In 2026 the parades were on 1, 8 and 15 February
Passaggi Festival
late June
the festival of non-fiction, five days of meetings with authors in the squares and courtyards of the old town, free to enter. In 2026 from 24 to 28 June
Fano Jazz by the Sea
July
one of the longest running jazz festivals in Italy, with concerts at dawn, the Green Jazz Village and stages scattered between the town and the sea. In 2026 it is the thirty-fourth edition, from 18 to 25 July
Remember
Useful tips
The Arch of Augustus, the cathedral and piazza XX Settembre are within three hundred metres: the Roman centre is a half hour walk, not a day
The walk out along the pier is the reason to come, and it wants low light: the trabucchi and the bronzes on the rocks are best seen in the last hour before sunset, in any season
The Carnival falls in February, out of season for anyone travelling by motorhome: but if you happen on it, Fano is another place
Where we ate: Taverna Cittadina, da Arrotoloni. One day a week they make tripe and another there is live music: it is worth asking which, and planning around it
Fano · part two
and then?
What to taste, and where to go tomorrow.
Taste
It is not a sweet and it is not a dish, and it is the most Fano thing there is: the coffee they drank on the quay before going out to sea, in three layers that do not mix.
in a small pan put the anise, the rum and the brandy in equal parts and add the sugar
warm it over a low flame without letting it boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved: the alcohol must not evaporate
put a strip of lemon peel in the bottom of each small glass, without the white pith, which turns it bitter
pour the warm mixture into the glasses, a good finger deep
make the coffee and pour it boiling hot with the glass tilted, letting it run slowly down the side: that is the gesture that keeps the three layers apart
do not stir, and serve at once with the glass too hot to hold flat: that is how a moretta is drunk, cupped in both hands
Distances and times by road, measured with OSRM on OpenStreetMap data.
Looking
Fano in photographs
27 shots from our visit. Tap one to see it large.
the open square with the Arch of Augustus at the endthe inscription dedicated to Augustus on the attic of the arch, with the cut columns abovethe round tower of the Augustan walls in the grass, in the late afternoon lightthe brick front of the cathedral with its rose window, on piazza Clemente VIIIthe kiosk in the gardens behind the cathedral, with the trees barethe canal port seen from the bridge, with the naval ensign in the foregroundthe anchor of the memorial to those lost at sea, at the head of the pierthe arched bridge over the port, with the sun low at the end of itthe fishing boats moored along the quay, with their masts and winchesthe dock and the tyres hung on the wall as fenders, with a heart painted on the huta trabucco seen from the rocks, arms open and the square net hanging over the waterthe trabucco on its piles and the breakwater in front, with the sea stillthe green light at the end of the pier, with the sun going down behind itone of the two bronzes on the rocks, against the light, with the sun on the waterthe bronze of the fisherman shading his eyes with his hand, on the rocks of the pierthe pier running back towards the dock, with the boats moored to the rightthe curved wooden bench on the seafrontSassonia beach full of umbrellas, with the town behindthe park of the sailing ship, with the wooden structure shaped like a boat in the middle of the grassthe wooden footbridge crossing the channel, with the moon already uptables laid under a parasol in a lane of the old townthe church of Sant'Antonio Abate, with its banded front and stone doorwaythe church of San Tommaso at the end of the street, with its rose window and bare brickpiazza XX Settembre with the civic tower and the tables of the cafés, in the eveningthe corso in the evening, with a barrel used as a table outside a bara glass on the terrace table, early in the morning, under the parasolthe countryside around Fano running down towards the sea, one evening
