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About Sorrento Coast
Sorrento is a small city in Campania, southern Italy. It lies on a peninsula separating the Bay of Naples, which it faces, from the Gulf of Salerno, south-southeast of Naples. It is a popular tourist destination. The town can be reached easily from Naples and Pompei, as it lies at the south-eastern end of the CircumVesuviana rail line. The town overlooks the bay of Naples, as the key place of the Sorrentine Peninsula, and many viewpoints in the city allow sight of Naples itself (visible across the bay) and Vesuvius.
According to tradition, the origin of Sorrento is attributed to the Greeks. In the pre-Roman age Sorrento was influenced by the Greek civilization: this can be seen in its plant and in the presence of the Athenaion, a great sanctuary, also, according to the legend, founded by Ulysses and originally devoted to the cult of the Sirens, whence Sorrento's name.
At the beginning of the 5th century it was a Bishop's residence, then it was overtaken by the Byzantines, remaining under their rule until the 9th century. As in the following centuries the authority of the far Byzantium faded, Sorrento turned into an autonomous duchy. It fought against the neighbour rival Amalfi and the Saracens. In 1133 it was conquered by the Roger the Norman and later became part of the Angevin family's estate, remaining thus until 1435.
On June 13, 1558 it was sacked by Muslim pirates, and a new line of walls was therefore built.
The most striking event of the following century was the revolt against the Spanish domination of 1648, led by Giovanni Grillo.
After a long period of stagnation, the beginning of the 1700s saw a period of cultural, economic and social rebirth for the whole Sorrentine peninsula, which reached its climax during the 1800s. This was the period when the tourist vocation of this area was born and was established with its inclusion in the so-called Grand Tour, a journey through the most important Italian sights that every noble European son of the time had to make to complete his cultural, historical and literary formation. Thus distinguished guests such as Byron, Keats, Scott, Dickens, Goethe, Wagner, lbsen and Nitzsche, to just mention the most famous, came to stay in Sorrento in search of sun and inspiration.
The same period saw an intensification of the more traditional activities such as agriculture, sea trade and finally and progressively that tourist industry that is currently the most important sector of the Sorrentine economy.
Sorrento was the birthplace of the poet Torquato Tasso (1544-1595), author of the Gerusalemme Liberata.
In 1920s, famous Soviet writer Maxim Gorky lived in Sorrento.
Today Sorrento is a modern city with over one hundred comfortable hotels; it is the home of a prestigious and rich Museum (Correale of Terranova), that contains important testimonies of both the history of the city and of the purest craft tradition of inlaid wood. Sorrento hosts important events in the fields of culture (International Prize Award City of Sorrento for science), music (Sorrentine Summer Musical Festival), cinema (International Film Festival).
Sorrento Coast cities
Vico Equense, with its Castle Giusso and its austere Mount Faito (1400m / 4605ft) that will allow you to pass from the sea to the mountain in few minutes.
Piano di Sorrento is a lively town that masterly combines its maritime and rural identity to the role of active trade centre of the Peninsula. High walls that once enclosed old citrus groves run along narrow lanes that cross its low hill.
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.
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.
