Sirolo is a small town on the Conero coast, halfway down the Adriatic, on the bit of the map most people skip on their way to somewhere with more Instagram. Good. It sits on top of white limestone cliffs that drop straight into the sea, and it has a piazza, a church, one road in, and roughly one opinion per inhabitant. Here is how to do it properly.
Swim
The beaches are under the cliffs, which means stairs, a boat, or a friend with a boat. The famous one is the Due Sorelle, two white rocks standing in the water like sisters who are not speaking. Go early, or go by boat from Numana, or do what we do and go in October when the water is still warm and the tourists have decided it is not.
Eat
Nothing happens before eight. Do not try. Order what the sea did that morning, drink the red from the hill behind you (it is called Rosso Conero and it is better than it needs to be), and if there is a rat on the menu it is a t-shirt, not a dish. My family's trattoria is in this town. I am not going to tell you which one, because then my mother will ask you how you found it, and you will be there for three hours.
Listen
In August there is the festa. Lights across the piazza, a stage that is really a trailer, speakers that blow at midnight. I DJ'd it for years. The whole Riviera Club era is this town: the emblem is the palm and the wave from the harbour wall, Madonna delle Onde is the hymn the fishermen's wives sang, and Rosmarino is what the whole hill smells like in June.
Leave
Everyone does, eventually. The trick is to come back. Take a tee, and it counts as a promise.