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Sorrento and its environs - Sorrento Peninsula
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 centre 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 centre, 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 centres 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!
Massa Lubrense - Walks
The territory characterised by Mediterranean bush, typical cultivation and coasts just on the sea, constitutes one of the main tourist resources of Sorrento Peninsula. One the activities promoted in this view has been the localisation and delimitation of a series of foot-paths. In 1990, in the sole commune of Massa Lubrense were localised 22 foot itineraries for an overall development of an area of about 110 km far from the carriage road and by the built-up area. Along these paths, whih are clearly indicated, it is possible to rediscover enchanted places rich in historical memories, panoramic points and ancient hamlets, the whole through lemon-orchards, olive-groves, oak-woods, sunny coasts and a luxuriant and evergreen nature, typical of the whole Sorrento Peninsula.
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