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 Sorrento and its environs - Sorrento Peninsula
The ancient farmhouses of Vico
Equense, the aristocratic villas of Sant’Agnello, Villa Fondi in Piano di
Sorrento, maritime villages, castles, guard towers, churches, convents,
historical hotels, are all places for walks and contemplation, places where from
time to time are organised thousands of feasts.
The Sorrento Peninsula has a
landscape unique in the world, where low and high hills, deep valleys
and majestic mountains alternate, where the Man’s work - who levelled
even the most impervious areas, transforming them in the famous
terraces degrading towards the sea, on which he cultivated orange and
lemon trees, olive groves and vineyards - has been grandiose. These
are the delight’s gardens that in springtime exhale a stirring scent
of orange - blossom. The mild and dry climate for most part of the
year makes Sorrento Peninsula the ideal destination in every season.
Reaching it by land, the first country you will find on your way is
Vico Equense, with its Castle Giusso and its austere Mount Faito
(1,400 m.) that will allow you to pass from the sea to the mountain in
few minutes. And then, the secret Meta, whose ancient
farmhouses and sunny beaches are a treasure to disclose. Piano di
Sorrento is a lively town that masterly combines its maritime and
rural identity to the role of active trade center of the Peninsula.
High walls that once enclosed old citrus groves run along narrow lanes
that cross its low hill. And Sant’Agnello, on the tuff ridge
just on the sea, enchanted the royal family of the Bourbons and the
princes of all Europe, who built there fabulous villas. And, just on
the sea, surrounded by hills, appears Sorrento, international
town, with its old city center, its sea-shore, its citrus groves.
Finally the pleasant Massa Lubrense, extreme border of the
Peninsula, just in front of Capri, a natural oasis with numberless
foot-path among ancient farmhouses, archaeological areas,
Mediterranean bush and indescribable landscapes, on enchanting sea and
beaches.
The Spanish sovereigns, who ruled during the modern age loved very
much this land, for its abundance of fruit, fish, birds, meat and
cheese. Afterwards, in the eighteenth century, Sorrento Peninsula was
rediscovered by the Grand tour. The intellectuals of all Europe, such
as Nietzsche and Ibsen, found there spiritual and cultural spurs,
inaugurating the taste of living in villa which made Sorrento
Peninsula a longed for goal of an exclusive tourism.
Nowadays, besides the aristocratic villas, there are prestigious
hotels, campings and farm holidays that are part of a wider network of
tourist services and offer a top-level comfort. In a tidy and safe
atmosphere, everybody will spend his ideal holiday, having the
opportunity to choose from nature and silence, health and culture,
swims, thermal treatments in Scrajo’s waters, boat excursions,
naturalistic walks, excursions in the archaeological areas of the
necropolises of Aequa and Deserto and visits to museums (Mineralogy
Museum, Museo Correale, Museum-workshop of wooden tarsia, Museum of
Villa Fondi), to the old city centers rich in monasteries and
cloisters, like that of San Francesco in Sorrento, and to the ancient
hamlets with frescoed churches, like the Chapel of Santa Lucia in Vico
Equense; but also sport and musical and cinema events of international
echo, theatre performances, night clubs and bars.
 Here is a party all the year long, with thousands of local cultural
traditions on a very tight schedule: from the Carnival, the famous
Easter processions that cross all Peninsula and the thousands of
summer and autumn feasts of typical products cheered up by the typical
Sorrento "tarantella", an ancient folkloristic dance, to the rich
Christmas events. Top-level restaurants invite you to taste the local
cooking, famous all over the world, which combines fish and meat menus
And then handicraft, whose most renowned expression is the wooden
tarsia, but that boasts also a shipbuilding production of boats
contended in all markets. Finally the many liqueurs distilled from
local products: lemon, tangerine, orange, nut.
Moreover Sorrento Peninsula is also the starting point for numberless
excursions: Pompei, Paestum, Naples and
Vesuvius, Capri and Ischia, Positano,
Amalfi and Ravello, and for any other destination, thanks
to a thick network of aerial, road, railway and maritime links. Then,
do not escape the Sirens’ singing: come, they are waiting for you!
Sorrento travel guides
Courtesy of
www.sorrentotourism.comit
(c) 1997-2008 E. Massetti
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