Ascoli Piceno the city of the travertine

Ascoli Piceno is situated at the foot of the Appenines of Marches, where the river Castellano flows into the river Tronto, the boundary line with the Abruzzo region.
It looks like a natural amphitheatre with on the west the mountains of the Apennines and its two national parks (Mountains della Laga and the Sibillini Mountains) to the south Colle San Marco and Montagna dei Fiori; to the north the Ascensione Mountains; and to the east the whole Tronto valley that leads to the Adriatic Sea, on the beautiful coast of San Benedetto del Tronto.
The Legend tell that a group of young Sabines, driven by a woodpecker (the bird sacred to Mars), would have reached a strip of land between two rivers where they founded the city of Ascoli and joining with the local populations have given rise to the Piceni.