The Surroundings
Naples is a city full of monuments and places of cultural and tourist interest. There are testimonies ranging from the greek period to the present day, through the Roman, Renaissance and Baroque. Naples is an open-air museum where the traveler will live unique and unforgettable experience. He will wander through the cobbled streets of the Old Town, visit the catacombs and enjoy the sun on the waterfront ...
Cirella Holidays Homes will suggest some essential goals representing Naples in a perfect way.
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Sorrento is a town overlooking the Bay of Naples in Southern Italy. A popular tourist destination, it can be reached easily from Naples and Pompeii as it is at the south-eastern end of the Circumvesuviana rail line. The Sorrentine Peninsula has views of Naples, Vesuvius and the Isle of Capri. The Amalfi Drive, connecting Sorrento and Amalfi, is a narrow road that threads along the high cliffs above the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Ferries and hydrofoils connect the town to Naples, Amalfi, Positano, Capri and Ischia. Sorrento's sea cliffs and luxury hotels have attracted celebrities including Enrico Caruso and Luciano Pavarotti.
Limoncello is a digestif made from lemon rinds, alcohol, water and sugar which is produced in Sorrento. Other agricultural production includes citrus fruit, wine, nuts and olives.
The Roman name for Sorrento was Surrentum. Legends indicate a close connection between Lipara and Surrentum, as though the latter had been a colony of the former; and even through the Imperial period Surrentum remained largely Greek. The oldest ruins are Oscan, dating from about 600 BC. Before its control by the Roman Republic, Surrentum was one of the towns subject to Nuceria, and shared its fortunes up to the Social War; it seems to have joined in the revolt of 90 BC like Stabiae; and was reduced to obedience in the following year, when it seems to have received a colony.
Main sights
Amalfi Coast
Marina Grande, port of Sorrento
Marina Piccola, small port of Sorrento
Park of Villa communale with a view of the Gulf of Naples with the volcano Vesuvius
Piazza Tasso, central place in Sorrento
Museo della tarsia lignea (intarsia)
Museum Correale (Museo Correale di Terranova), museum with small archeologic department[8]
Via San Cesareo, Sorrento's main shopping street
Monuments
Cathedral of Sorrento (Santi Filippo e Giacomo Cathedral), from the 14th century with façade reconstructed in 1924. It was built over time in different styles, with doors of the 11th century from Constantinople.
Church of Santi Felice e Baccolo (it)
Monastery of St. Francesco, 14th century
Roman ruins at the Punta del Capo
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Ischia is a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It lies at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the city of Naples. It is the largest of the Phlegrean Islands. Ischia is the name of the main comune of the island.
Main sights
Castello Aragonese
Lacco Ameno
S. Angelo d'Ischia
Ancient gardens of “La Mortella”.
Aragonese Castle
The Aragonese Castle (Castello Aragonese, Ischia Ponte) was built on a rock near the island in 474 BC, by Hiero I of Syracuse. At the same time, two towers were built to control enemy fleets' movements. The rock was then occupied by Parthenopeans (the ancient inhabitants of Naples). In 326 BC the fortress was captured by Romans, and then again by the Parthenopeans.
The gardens of La Mortella , located in Forio-San Francesco, were originally the property of English composer William Walton.
Giardini Ravino is a botanical garden with one of the richest collection of cacti and succulents cultivated outdoors in Europe. Giardini Ravino has been the subject of an award from the OPE (European Parliamentary Observatory) for the most ecofriendly property in South Italy. e CS, #1 or #2 bus routes.
Villa La Colombaia is located in Lacco Ameno and Forio territories. Surrounded by a park, the villa (called "The Dovecote") was made by Luigi Patalano, a famous local socialist and journalist. It is now the seat of a cultural institution and museum dedicated to Luchino Visconti. The institution promotes cultural activities such as music, cinema, theatre, art exhibitions, workshops, and cinema reviews. The villa and the park are open to the public.
Others
Sant'Angelo (Sant'Angelo, in the comune of Serrara Fontana)
Maronti Beach (Barano d'Ischia)
Church of the Soccorso' (Forio)
Bay of Sorgeto, with hot thermal springs (Panza)
Poseidon Gardens - spa with several thermal pools (Panza)
Citara Beach (Panza)
English's Beach (Ischia)
Pitthekoussai Archaeological museum[11]
The Angelo Rizzoli museum[11]
The main industry is tourism, centering on thermal spas that cater mostly to European (especially German) and Asian tourists eager to enjoy the fruits of the island's natural volcanic activity, its hot springs, and its volcanic mud.
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Capri is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has been a resort since the time of the Roman Republic.
Some of the main features of the island include the following: the Marina Piccola (the little harbour), the Belvedere of Tragara (a high panoramic promenade lined with villas), the limestone crags called sea stacks that project above the sea (the Faraglioni), the town of Anacapri, the Blue Grotto (Grotta Azzurra), and the ruins of the Imperial Roman villas.
Capri is part of the region of Campania, Province of Naples. The town of Capri is the island's main population centre. The island has two harbours, Marina Piccola and Marina Grande (the main port of the island). The separate comune of Anacapri is located high on the hills to the west
Capri is a tourist destination for both Italians and foreigners. In the 1950s Capri became a popular resort. In summer, the island is heavily visited by tourists, especially by day trippers from Naples and Sorrento. The center of Capri is the “Piazzetta”.
Capri is home to the Mediterranean bush, the Arboreal Euphorbia, and the Ilex Wood. The native inhabitants on the island include quails, robins, peregrine falcons, woodcocks, blackbirds, geckos, red goldfish, conger eels, sargos, groupers, mullets, and the blue lizard of the Faraglioni.
Capri has twelve churches, seven museums and several monuments. The most visited attraction in Capri is the Grotta Azzurra (Blue Grotto). It is a special cave, discovered in the 19th century by foreign tourists and has been a phenomenon ever since. On one side of the grotto are the remains of ancient Roman rock, with a narrow cavern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capri
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The city of Pompeii was an ancient Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, was mostly destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Researchers believe that the town was founded in the seventh or sixth century BC by the Osci or Oscans. It came under the domination of Rome in the 4th century BC, and was conquered and became a Roman colony in 80 BC after it joined an unsuccessful rebellion against the Roman Republic. By the time of its destruction, 160 years later, its population was estimated at 11,000 people, and the city had a complex water system, an amphitheatre, gymnasium, and a port.
The eruption destroyed the city, killing its inhabitants and burying it under tons of ash. Evidence for the destruction originally came from a surviving letter by Pliny the Younger, who saw the eruption from a distance and described the death of his uncle Pliny the Elder, an admiral of the Roman fleet, who tried to rescue citizens. The site was lost for about 1,500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery almost 150 years later by Spanish engineer Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre in 1748.[1] The objects that lay beneath the city have been preserved for centuries because of the lack of air and moisture. These artifacts provide an extraordinarily detailed insight into the life of a city during the Pax Romana. During the excavation, plaster was used to fill in the voids in the ash layers that once held human bodies. This allowed one to see the exact position the person was in when he or she died.
Pompeii has been a tourist destination for over 250 years. Today it has UNESCO World Heritage Site status and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Italy, with approximately 2.5 million visitors every year.[2]
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Palazzo delle arti Napoli (PAN) is an art gallery and a museum that is housed in a pink 16th-century palace located in Via dei Mille in the heart of Naples.
PAN has 6000 square meters to fill with art. It describes itself as a “centre for arts and documentation”. PAN has no permanent collection of art, but it has amazing venue of exhibitions of contemporary art.
Three storeyed building with white small floors are filled with paintings, photographies, trading floors and sculptures. There are works by many Italian artists displayed there such as William Kentridge and Dennis Oppenheim.
Contemporary art exhibition also involve multimedia, design, architecture as well as film screenings, book presentations, lectures, workshops, discussions and theatre events. There are also an experimental art lab, multimedia library, archive and a cafe-bookshop In PAN.
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If you like cribs (presepe in italian) and want to see really all about the Neapolitan Crib, you should definitely visit the famous street of the nativity scene makers, in Naples’s historic city, the Via San Gregorio Armeno.
Here you can admire numerous shops with creative nativity figurines in all variations. Besides the Jesus- and Madonna figurines you will also find detailed copies of all household objects, gastronomic delights, exotic animals, and sometimes even caricatured politicians.
Moreover you can get thousand of accessories and building material for your presepe, like cork to create the mountains, ready-to-place houses, wells, waterfalls powered by electric engine, small lakes with water, trees, grasslands, bridges, towers. And all (or nearly all) handmade!
During Christmas time, more than half a million tourists come to see the shops with the original miniature figurines and the shops in this street are especially busy.
However, the most shops are open all year round and you can take your time and have a look around after New Year’s.
A good period to visit the street is in september-november, when all the handicraftsmen start to prepare their shop for the busy Christmas time.
http://www.portanapoli.com/Eng/naples/san-gregorio-armeno.html
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Castel Sant'Elmo is a medieval fortress located on a hilltop near the Certosa di San Martino, overlooking Naples, Italy. The name "Sant'Elmo" derives from a former 10th-century church, Sant'Erasmo, shortened to "Ermo" and, finally altered to "Elmo". It presently serves as a museum, exhibition hall, and offices.
Documents date a structure at the site from 1275, from the era of Charles d'Anjou. Known originally as Belforte, it was likely a fortified residence, surrounded by walls, its entrance gate marked by two turrets. In 1329, using designs by the Sienese architect Tino da Camaino, the Duke Robert d'Anjou enlarged the fortress described in documents as palatium in summitatae montanae Sancti Erasmi. Camaino also supervised construction of the adjacent Carthusian monastery of San Martino. By 1336, the palace was referred to as a castrum or castle, and work continued under Camaino till his death in 1343.
The Angevin fortress was severely damaged in an earthquake in 1456, which demolished the external walls and the towers. The Argonese rulers of Naples, and notably Don Pedro de Toledo, the first governor and cousin of the Viceroy, included it in a comprehensive scheme designed to fortify the land perimeter of the city, based on four separate strongholds. Castel Sant'Erasmo acquired its hexagonal star shape between 1537 and 1547 under the designs of Pedro Luis Escriva from Valencia, a military architect. The daring hexagonal shape drew fierce criticism from his contemporaries, to such an extent that in 1538 Escriva defended his design in a published Apologia.
In fact, with its double tenaille, numerous embrasures in the bastions and high walls surrounded by a moat, the castle was admirably suited to the topography of the site and the strategic and defensive functions.
It continued to be military property until 1976, when an enormous restoration project was undertaken by the provincial authority of the Provveditorato alle Opere Pubbliche of the Regione Campania. In seven years the original castle was freed of centuries of accretions, and made structurally sound, recreating the original galleries, parapet walkways and underground chambers, where an auditorium seating 700 has been created. In 1982 the site was handed over to the Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici e Storici of Naples.
The former Marine headquarters now houses the castle administration and some administrative offices for Naples, including the Catalogue Office, Photographic Archives and the Thefts Office. The intention is to make Castle Sant'Elmo a polyfunctional center for activities including contemporary art, the performing arts and congresses.
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The Certosa di San Martino is a former monastery complex, now a museum, in Naples, southern Italy. Along with Castel Sant'Elmo that stands beside it, this is the most visible landmark of the city, perched atop the Vomero hill that commands the gulf. A Carthusian monastery, it was finished and inaugurated under the rule of Queen Joan I in 1368. It was dedicated to St. Martin of Tours. During the first half of the 16th century it was expanded. Later, in 1623, it was further expanded and became, under the direction of architect Cosimo Fanzago, essentially the structure one sees today.
In the early 19th century, under French rule the monastery was closed and was abandoned by the religious order. Today, the buildings house a museum with a display of Spanish and Bourbon era artifacts, as well as displays of the presepe-Nativity scene-considered to be among the finest in the world.
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The Villa Comunale is the most prominent and visible park in Naples, southern Italy. It was built in the 1780s by King Ferdinand IV (later known as Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies) on land reclaimed along the coast between the main body of the city and the small port of Mergellina. The park was originally a "Royal Garden", reserved for members of the royal family, but open to the public on special holidays such as the Festival of Piedigrotta. The park was opened to the general public on a permanent basis in 1869 after the unification of Italy.
The park houses the Anton Dohrn aquarium, a renowned scientific institution built in the 1870s. The seaside road, via Caracciolo, which now lies between the aquarium and the sea, is another more recent reclamation project added to the city in 1900 to provide another connecting road between the city and the suburbs to the west.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Comunale
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Spaccanapoli is the straight and narrow main street that traverses the old, historic center of the city of Naples, Italy. The name is a popular usage and means, literally, "Naples splitter". The name is derived from the fact that it is very long and from above it seems to divide that part of the city.
This street is the lower (Decumanus Inferiore) and southernmost of the three decumani, or east-west streets, of the grid of the original Greco-Roman city of Neapolis. The central main Decumanus Maggiore is now Via dei Tribunali; while the northernmost or upper Decumanus Superiore is now via Anticaglia and Via della Sapienza. The three decumani were (and still are) intersected by numerous north-south cross-streets called cardini, together forming the grid of the ancient city.
Today, the street officially starts at Piazza Gesù Nuovo and is officially named Via Benedetto Croce. Moving east, the street changes name to Via S. Biagio dei Librai and then crosses Via Duomo (named for the Cathedral of Naples) and moves beyond the confines of the old center of town.
Spaccanapoli is the main promenade for tourists as it provides access to a number of important sights of the city.
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Forty meters below the characteristic and lively streets of the Historic Center of Naples, you find a different world, unexplored, isolated by time, but deeply connected with the world above.
It’s the heart of Naples, and the place from which the city was born. To visit it is to travel to the past, a world 2400 years old.
Every historic epic, from the foundation of Neopolis, to the bombs of WWII, has left it’s mark on the walls of the yellow tufa stone, the soul of Naples, and the stone with which the city was built.
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The Villa Floridiana is a large park in the Vomero quarter in Naples, southern Italy. It overlooks the western Neapolitan suburbs of Chiaia and Mergellina.
The villa dates from 1816 when Ferdinand I of the House of Bourbon, King of the Two Sicilies, acquired the property.
Between 1817 and 1819 the architect Antonio Niccolini reconstructed the building and the surrounding gardens. The director of the Botanical Gardens, Friedrich Dehnhardt, planted oaks, pines, palms, cypresses and a large selection of flowers in the gardens.
The King then donated the property as the site for a vacation residence to his morganatic wife, Lucia Migliaccio Partanna, duchess of Floridia, from which the villa has taken its name. The neoclassical residence and surrounding gardens were built between 1817-19. The Villa currently houses the Duke of Martina National Museum of Ceramics.
