★ History and art · Naples and the Phlegraean FieldsNaplesA huge tufa quarry in the Sanità district where the bones of thousands of nameless Neapolitans are gathered in neat rows.
The storyThe dead of the 1656 plague and the 1836 cholera epidemic were brought here, together with remains cleared from the city's churches. In the 19th century the cult of the anime pezzentelle, the poor souls, was born: Neapolitans would adopt a skull, clean it, give it a name and ask it for favours in exchange for prayers. In 1969 Cardinal Ursi banned the cult as superstitious, but the flowers and notes never entirely disappeared.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Naples and the Phlegraean FieldsNaplesA Roman tunnel about 770 metres long dug through the Posillipo hill, which comes out onto the ruins of a villa overlooking the sea and the islet of Gaiola.
The storyThe villa belonged to Publius Vedius Pollio, a wealthy Roman knight who left it to Augustus on his death. Ancient writers say he bred moray eels in his fishponds and had slaves who made mistakes thrown to them: when one of them broke a crystal cup in front of Augustus, the emperor ordered all the cups smashed and the ponds filled in. Today the villa has a theatre and an odeon with the sea as a backdrop, and beneath the water is an underwater archaeological park.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Naples and the Phlegraean FieldsBacoliAn underground cathedral: a Roman cistern from the age of Augustus, about 70 metres long and 15 high, supported by 48 pillars.
The storyIt collected the water of the Augustan aqueduct, which came from the springs of Serino, over a hundred kilometres away, to supply the Roman fleet based at Misenum, the most important in the Mediterranean. Pliny the Elder set out from here in AD 79 to rescue the people living below Vesuvius, and died during the eruption. The cistern could hold about 12,000 cubic metres of water.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Caserta, Sannio and IrpiniaCasertaAn 18th-century workers' village on the hill above Caserta, built around a royal silk works, with the Belvedere and the silk museum.
The storyIn 1789 Ferdinand IV of Bourbon gave the colony its own code of laws, surprisingly modern: compulsory schooling for boys and girls, equal rights for men and women, houses assigned to families, no dowries and a common fund for the sick and elderly. The colony was meant to become an ideal city, Ferdinandopoli, which was never built. But the silk tradition has survived: brocades and damasks for palaces and theatres are still woven in the area.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Caserta, Sannio and IrpiniaSant'Agata de' GotiA village built on the edge of a tufa spur, its houses continuing the rock face that drops sheer to two streams.
The storyThe name recalls the Goths who are said to have settled here after the war with the Byzantines. In the 18th century the bishop of Sant'Agata was Alfonso Maria de' Liguori, the saint who wrote the carol «Tu scendi dalle stelle». The church of the Annunziata holds a large Last Judgement frescoed in the 15th century.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Caserta, Sannio and IrpiniaConza della CampaniaThe ruins of the village destroyed by the Irpinia earthquake, turned into an archaeological park on a hill above a lake.
The storyOn the evening of 23 November 1980 a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck Irpinia and Basilicata, killing about 2,900 people. Conza was razed to the ground and rebuilt further down the valley. While clearing the rubble, archaeologists found the forum of the Roman town of Compsa beneath the medieval village: today you walk among the ancient streets, the collapsed cathedral and the 20th-century houses.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Nature · Amalfi Coast and SorrentoScalaA lush green valley behind Amalfi, with waterfalls, streams and the ruins of old paper mills and ironworks among lemon and chestnut trees.
The storyThe Canneto stream turned the wheels of the paper mills that made Amalfi famous in the Middle Ages and of an ironworks that gave the valley its name. The damp, sheltered microclimate has preserved a giant fern, Woodwardia radicans, a survivor from the Tertiary period: to protect it, the upper part of the valley is a state nature reserve.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Beach · Amalfi Coast and SorrentoFuroreA cleft in the rock where the Schiato stream meets the sea, with a small beach, fishermen's houses and a bridge about thirty metres high.
The storyFurore is called «the village that isn't there» because it has no centre: its houses are scattered over the slope. In 1948 Roberto Rossellini filmed «The Miracle» here with Anna Magnani, an episode of the film «L'amore», and the fishing hamlet still remembers their love affair. Every year divers in an international high-diving competition leap from the bridge. The village is also decorated with murals by artists invited over the years.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Beach · Amalfi Coast and SorrentoMassa LubrenseA wild bay at the tip of the Sorrento peninsula, facing the Faraglioni of Capri, reachable only on foot or from the sea.
The storyUntil the 1950s there was an Italsider limestone quarry here, whose ruins remain. In 1986 the company donated the bay to FAI, the Italian National Trust, which has returned it to nature. Tradition says that the sirens who tempted Ulysses lived on these rocks: the nearby Li Galli islets were known in antiquity as the Sirenuse.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Cilento, Paestum and Vallo di DianoRoscignoAn abandoned village in the heart of the Cilento, with its square, fountain, church and farmhouses just as they were a hundred years ago.
The storyIn the early 20th century landslides forced the inhabitants to leave, and the village was moved by decree to higher ground, where today's Roscigno stands. The houses were emptied but not demolished, and the village has remained a rare example of an intact 19th-century farming village. For many years it had a single inhabitant, and it has become the symbol of the abandoned villages of the South.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Nature · Cilento, Paestum and Vallo di DianoMorigeratiA WWF reserve in a gorge where the Bussento river emerges from a cave, among small waterfalls, mills and a woodland path.
The storyFurther upstream, at Caselle in Pittari, the river disappears into a karst sinkhole and flows for about six kilometres beneath the mountain before re-emerging here, below the village of Morigerati. The gorge was inhabited in prehistoric times, and along the path remain a watermill and traces of the old river trades.
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