The best MTB trails around Roccafluvione

The Arena waterfall is one of the most beautiful natural attractions in the Roccafluvione area. It presents itself to visitors with a drop of over 10 meters, between two steep rocky spurs. It is fed by the Fluvione stream, one of the main tributaries of the Tronto river.

A pre-mountain area rich in history and culture, the territory of the Municipality of Roccafluvione includes approximately 60 hamlets, mostly located in the area of Mount Ceresa, a mountain range between the municipalities of Roccafluvione Acquasanta and Montegallo.

Magnificent waterfall over ten meters high along the Fluvione stream. Its leap is spectacular and can be admired from the stone bridge adjacent to the old Pignoloni mill. Before the waterfall, the stream forms a small lake with very shallow and calm waters where it is possible to find relief from the summer heat.

The Arena waterfall, a natural jewel of Roccafluvione, is a drop of water of over 10 meters, created by the Fluvione stream between steep rocks. Next to it stands the Pignoloni Mill, built in the 17th century. Above the waterfall is a lake created by a weir. In autumn, the lake offers a unique show. The best observation point is the bridge overlooking the waterfall, a stone's throw from the ancient mill of Arena.

Monestino, once a fraction of the municipality of Rocca Casaregnana, today is a set of a few ruins immersed in the vegetation. Its history is a fascinating piece of the medieval history of the Marches. The first traces identify it as a "monastery", a term that suggests an origin linked to a religious community. It is mentioned in the Ascoli land registers of 1381 alongside Vetoli, both part of a union. Over the centuries, Monestino experienced depopulation and territorial changes, culminating in the annexation to Rocca Casaregnana and then to Roccafluvione after the unification of Italy. Today, you can still see the traces of the houses half-buried in the vegetation, as well as the remains of a farmhouse that reveal the various architectural interventions that have taken place over time. A still active spring flows in front of the decaying building, and the road, going up, leads to the top of the village, where the interlocking between nature and architecture creates a suggestive atmosphere.

Background Currently the church (18.00 x 6.50 meters) has a single nave facing east with a slender cuspidated bell tower (2.50 x 2.50 x 16.00 meters) incorporated into the façade on the right side. The gabled façade, in squared sandstone blocks, has a simple and elegant portal with architrave on molded shelves, dated 1516, surmounted by a lunette and a small single lancet window. The north side adjacent to the cemetery has nothing particular, while in the south there is a simple side portal with an architrave on shelves and traces of ancient single lancet windows now closed; the current semicircular windows as well as the brick pennuccia of the roof date back to restorations of the mid-century. XX. Leaning against the back wall of the church you can see the small building of the hermitage characterized by two narrow slits. The entrance has a narrow atrium, flanked on one side by the bell tower and on the other by the baptistery which is accessed from the nave; above these there is a small choir loft. The hall has a painted rectangular plan, except for the remarkable stone triumphal arch of 1549, with a wooden trussed ceiling and some niches with statues of saints; the current terrazzo floor dates back to an intervention in the mid-century XX; interesting are the baptismal font in sandstone and the lateral stoup in travertine. The presbytery, raised from the hall by a step, has a cross vault and a Baroque altar on a 16th century frescoed dossal, containing a niche with the clay statue of the Madonna and Child, two other niches are present on the sides as well as two doors, the one on the left that leads into the sacristy, the one on the right in a room of the ancient hermitage. https://www.iluoghidelsilenzio.it/chiesa-di-s-maria-delle-scalelle-roccafluvione-ap/

MONESTINO Fraction of the former municipality of Rocca Casaregnana The few ruins that lie among the brambles still perpetuate the history of this singular now uninhabited village to visitors. Most probably it originates in the Middle Ages and in the first correspondences that mention it it appears with the name of Monastery, which links the place to an unspecified monastic community. The Ascoli land registers of 1381 treat the hamlet together with Vetoli, as belonging to its own union, which already in the following century had suffered great depopulation and had been annexed to the neighboring Rocca Casaregnana, remaining there until the territorial upheavals of the Roman Republic and of Napoleon, subjected like the whole area to the Department of Tronto. With the restoration in 1815 it passed under Venarotta together with Vetoli, Marsia and Vallicella, to then be definitively united with the municipality of Rocca Casaregnana up to united Italy; in 1863 it will become part of the nascent municipality of Roccafluvione. What remains are some houses semi-submerged by vegetation or reduced to ruins, although some are still inhabited in the summer, built on a cultivated plateau; singular is the ruin of a farmhouse where you can read the various extensions made in different eras. In front of the dilapidated building you can draw water from the still functioning spring, while continuing the road climbs towards the highest part of the incasato where by now the remains of the modest houses have given way to increasingly dense vegetation.