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Called Campania
Felix (‘blessed country’) by
the Romans because of its fertile soil,
mild climate and (by southern Italian
standards) plentiful water. Wine,
citrus fruits, tobacco, wheat and
vegetables are grown.
Naples
Naples ,
the third-largest Italian city,
occupies one of the most beautiful
natural settings of any city in Europe.
Above it is the bare cone of Mount
Vesuvius, an active volcano, and
beside it the broad sweep of the Bay
of Naples and the Tyrrhennian
Sea. The city itself is a mad
jumble of tenements and traffic, street
vendors and crumbling palaces.
A
toll road leads most of the way up to
the summit of Vesuvius (it is
the local Lover’s Lane); the final
few hundred yards involve an energetic
scramble up a bare pumice track. The
viewing platform is right on the rim of
the caldera and provides a dizzying
view of both the steam-filled abyss and
the whole of the Bay of Naples.
Nearby,
the remains of Pompeii and Herculaneum,
engulfed in the great eruption of AD79,
are a unique record of how ordinary
1st-century Romans lived their daily
lives. Moulds of people and animals
found well-preserved, buried under the
burning ash, can be seen at Pompeii,
and the decoration in some of the
excavated villas is amazingly intact,
including numerous wall paintings of
gods and humans in scenes ranging from
the heroic to the erotic.
The
city of Caserta was the
country seat of the Kings of Naples.
The Baroque Royal Palace owes
much to Versailles. There are imposing
Greek temples at Paestum.
The
peninsula just south of Naples is one
of the most popular regions in Italy
for holidaymakers, especially those in
search of sun and sand. But the added
bonus for many is the extraordinary
beauty of the region: sheer craggy
cliffs rise over the shimmering
blue-green Mediterranean waters, and
everywhere there are views of hills and
sea. History and culture are also
present in abundance and it is easy to
understand the persistent attraction of
the area for visitors.
Sorrento
Sorrento ,
located on the north side of the
peninsula, has attracted artists for
centuries. Wagner, Nietzsche and Gorky
have spent some time here and Ibsen
wrote The Ghosts while in
Sorrento (the town does possess a
somewhat haunted quality at night, with
dimly but artistically lit ruins just
visible in the depths of its plunging
forested gorges). The Museo Correale
in Sorrento has Roman relics and
some furniture, paintings and porcelain
belonging to the Correale family, but
the outside part of the museum is by
far the more interesting, with a walk
through gardens and vineyards to a
promontory overlooking the bay offering
a spectacular view of the harbor and
the surrounding towns and cliffs.
Sorrento is also the closest link to
the island of Capri, just
off the coast (links are also available
from Positano, Amalfi and Naples).
Ferries and hydrofoils leave from the harbor
throughout the day, arriving at the Marina
Grande. Boats are then available
from here to Capri’s main tourist
attraction, the Blue Grotto. Other
sites worth seeing include the Villa
Tiberio, built as the Roman Emperor
Tiberius’s retirement villa on the
island and notorious for the pursuit of
various pleasures which took place
inside its once luxurious walls. Now
reduced to an organized rubble of
stones, it takes some imagining, but
the views are superb and almost worth
the strenuous 45-minute walk up the
hill. The Garden of Augustus,
south of the town of Capri, is pretty,
but often crowded with tourists. From
here there is access to a ‘beach’
down a winding road where visitors are
permitted to swim off the rocks of this
wild shore.
Ischia,
another island in the Bay of Naples, is
easily accessible from Sorrento or from
Naples. Although larger than Capri, it
is not quite so popular with tourists,
but well-visited by the locals who
appreciate it more for its calm and
scenic beauty.
Amalfi
Situated in the middle of the south
side of the peninsula, is perhaps the
most well-known of the region’s
resort towns. However, the town still
has an authentic air about it, despite
its popularity with tourists. The
mostly Romanesque Duomo with its
13th-century bell tower, located in the
main square, looks entirely untouched
by the contemporary hustle and bustle
around it. The Cloister of Paradise,
just to the right of the cathedral,
also makes good viewing. There are some
excellent restaurants and the local
wine, Sammarco, bottled in Amalfi, is superb and surprisingly
inexpensive.
Perched
high above Amalfi, ‘closer to the sky
than the seashore’, as André Gide
wrote, is the former independent
republic of Ravello. From here,
the most spectacular views of the
Amalfi Coast can be had, above all from
the Villa Cimbrone where marble
statues line a belvedere that is
perched on the very edge of the cliff
335m (1100ft) up.
Positano
Positano, about 25km (16
miles) along the coast from Amalfi, is
a small exclusive resort of great
beauty. Heaped high above the coast,
its brightly painted houses and bougainvillea
have inspired a thousand picture
postcards and draw crowds of visitors
every summer.
Other Campanian resorts include: Maiori,
Vietri sul Mare and Palinuro.
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