Sorrento

Sorrento is located on a tuff coast and is reflected in the Gulf of Naples, fascinating tourists and visitors, attracted by breathtaking views and landscapes. The town gives its name to the Sorrento Peninsula, a great area extended from Vico Equense to Massa Lubrense. This area, thanks to its geographical shape, suspended between the green hills and the blue of the seas, is from the time immemorial a great attraction of the southern Italy. With its almost twelve thousands accommodations in over 150 accommodations facilities and over ten extra accommodations – among camping, bed & breakfast, residences, hostels, holiday villages and thirty farm holidays – the Sorrento coast is one of the most popular destinations of the entire Campania region. It is also the ideal destination for Italian visitors and foreign tourists, that want to plan excursions to Capri, Ischia, Pompei, Amalfi, Positano, Ercolano, Paestum and Vesuvius, places located at a distance of 50 Kilometres. Sorrento was first a Phoenician colony , after that it became a port frequented by Greeks for the commercial activity with Naples and with others southern cities. It was named by Greeks “Syrenusion” or “Syreon” that means Siren’s land, the Sirens were the mythological creatures half woman and half fish, that Homer told in his famous work “Odyssey”. These creatures with their song could fascinate the sailors.
After the rule of Oscans and Sannites it was submitted by Romans. The Romans appreciated so much the beauties of this place that during the imperial period it was elected an holiday destination of patricians, as the numerous villas witness. It was the native country of Torquato Tasso. From time immemorial Sorrento has exercised a particular charm which has attracted poets and literary men like Goethe, Lamartine, Stendhal, De Bouchard, Byron to D’Annunzio, Ibsen, Douglas, musicians like Rossini, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Wagner, painters like Pinelli, Fernet, Lindstrom, photographers like De Luca and the brothers Alinari, directors like De Sica, Gallone and Mastronardo. Among the famous visitors of Sorrento we can remember also Enrico Caruso, Giacomo Casanova, Scipione Breislak, Marion Crawford, Charles Dickens, Helman Melvill, Friedtich Nietzche ed Axel Munthe. This coasting town was included in the eighteenth- century among the main destinations of the Ground Tour, a journey among the most significant Italian cities, that was made by the foreign intellectuals who wanted to study in depth the Italian history, art and culture.