In 1861 the opening of the Adriatic railway changed Falconara for good: from a village huddled around its medieval hilltop castle, the settlement moved down towards the sandy beach, which in the meantime was being fitted out for seaside tourism, until it merged with Ancona into a single built-up area. As for the name, legends multiply: some tie it to falconry hunting, some to the Cortesi family's coat of arms with a crowned falcon, and some tell how three brothers, soldiers of German origin who came to Italy following the Byzantine general Belisarius, divided up the territory, and the youngest, who was named precisely Falcone, had built the castle that would take his name. In 1225 the Cortesi asked Ancona for protection and merged their castles into it, joining the city's nobility: from then on Falconara was, in effect, an outpost of Ancona.
The nearby castle of Barcaglione paid dearly for a betrayal: in 1375 a captain in the pay of Florence occupied it without a fight, and Ancona, to punish the surrender without resistance, had it torn down, reusing the bricks to reinforce its own walls and those of Falconara. Today the town lives on industry and its airport: the API refinery, the main economic engine, has had two fatal accidents, in 1999 and 2004, which kept the population on edge for years; the Raffaello Sanzio airport at Castelferretti remains the only international airport in the Marche. The Resistance museum still holds the arsenal of a partisan band active in the Apennines.
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📅 Every year, on 8 May
Falconara Marittima celebrates Our Lady of the Rosary on 8 May; the history of the town, inhabited since prehistoric times, is also preserved in the Museum of the Resistance and in the castle of Rocca Priora.
Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Falconara Marittima, but an easy day trip away.
