 | |
| Getting Started | |
World Guide  | |
| Airport Guides | |
| TRAVELLER TOOLS | ||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
The World | |
|
Southern Italy |
|
Italy,
Southern Italy Southern Italy: CAMPANIA: Naples: , the third-largest Italian city, occupies one of the most beautiful natural settings of any city in Europe. It is a bustling city, full of history and narrow alley-ways. There are lively street markets selling fish and vegetables, as well as shops offering leather goods at discount prices set among churches, palaces, museums, tenement buildings, cafés and bookshops. The impressive National Museum houses a good collection of Egyptian, Roman and Byzantine artefacts, including many original wall-paintings and mosaics from Pompeii and Herculaneum. Above Naples 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. A toll road leads most of the way up to the summit of Vesuvius (it is the local Lover's Lane; people also gather mushrooms here when the conditions are right); the final few hundred yards involve an easy hike up a well-maintained bare pumice track. The viewing platform is right on the rim of the caldera and provides a good view of both the steam-filled abyss and the whole of the Bay of Naples and Pompeii below. 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: , 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 harbour 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 harbour 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 organised 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 Cathedral 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 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: , 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 bougainvillaea have inspired a thousand picture postcards and draw crowds of visitors every summer. Other Campanian resorts include: Maiori, Vietri sul Mare and Palinuro. PUGLIA (Apulia): Puglia was important in Roman times as the gateway to the eastern Mediterranean. The port of Brindisi, now eclipsed by Bari in commercial terms, was the terminus of the Via Appia, along which Eastern produce was conveyed to Rome and beyond. The Museo Archeologico Provinciale houses many relics from this prosperous era. Virgil died in Brindisi in 19BC. On the Murge plateau between Alberobello and Selva di Fasano, the countryside is littered with thousands of extraordinary stone dwellings known as trulli. Circular with conical roofs (also of stone), they are similar to the more famous nuraghi of Sardinia. At the northern end of the plateau is a unique octagonal castle, the Castella del Monte, built as a hunting lodge in the 13th century by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (the self-styled Stupor Mundi, 'Wonder of the World'). Nearby, at Canosa di Puglia, are the extensive remains of the important Roman town of Canusium. The convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in San Giovanni Rotondo is an important pilgrimage site because of its connections with Padre Pio da Petralcina. There are fine beaches on the Adriatic coast between Barletta and Bari. BASILICATA (Lucania): CALABRIA: |