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Sorrento

A town on a cliff between two marinas, facing Vesuvius across the Bay of Naples.

Marina Grande • The Valley of the Mills • Inlaid Wood

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🧭 Why Visit

Sorrento is the practical base for the whole peninsula, with ferries to Capri and Naples, the train to Pompeii, and the coast road running south. It is also a town worth its own day: two marinas, a gorge full of ruins in the middle of it, and a terrace on the cliff facing Vesuvius.

🏛️ A Little History

Piazza Tasso was cut in 1866 and it changed the shape of the town. The square gave Sorrento its centre and closed off the Vallone dei Mulini behind it, isolating the gorge from the sea and ending the mills that had worked there since about 1600.

💡 Did You Know

The sawmill in the Vallone dei Mulini cut wood for Sorrento's craftsmen. The gorge is derelict and the trade is not. The showrooms on Piazza Tasso, a few steps from the railing you look down from, still sell inlaid tables, trays and panels.

Where to stay nearby

🏨 Hotel Palazzo Guardati

Our base in Sorrento, a short walk from Piazza Tasso, with the bay and the umbrella pines from the window.

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FIRST LIGHT

The Bay at Dawn

Sorrento sits on a cliff between two marinas, looking north across the Bay of Naples. Before six in the morning the harbour below is still and Vesuvius is a flat shape on the far side of the water.

A harbour at dawn seen from above, with ferries and small boats moored along two piers below a cliff.
First light on Marina PiccolaFirst light over Marina Piccola, the ferries lined along the harbour below the cliffs.
A wide bay at dawn with a long rocky headland on the left and a harbour with piers below.
The headland from the terraceThe bay opens west past the headland, the harbour road running along the water below.
A wide panoramic view of a harbour with rows of moored boats, cliffs on the right and calm water to the horizon.
The harbour, end to endA panorama taken in one sweep, the town rising on the right and the bay flat to the horizon.
A vertical view down onto a small marina with rows of white boats, a road curving above and the sea beyond.
Down onto the marinaLooking straight down onto the marina, the boats in ranks and the road curving behind them.
BEFORE THE SHOPS OPEN

The Town Waking Up

Corso Italia runs the length of the old town and it is empty at first light, shutters down, the sun reaching the upper floors before it reaches the street. Piazza Tasso is the square everything turns around.

An empty shopping street at dawn with shutters down, lamps overhead and sunlight only on the upper floors.
Corso Italia before the shops openMorning light reaches the upper facades of Corso Italia while the street below is still in shade.
A public garden with umbrella pines, citrus trees and a black iron lamp post, a wooded hillside behind.
The gardens above the townUmbrella pines and citrus trees in a public garden above the town, before the day starts.
A tall bronze column of intertwined human figures on a traffic island in front of a yellow palazzo with cafes.
Ad Lucem on Piazza TassoMatteo Pugliese's Ad Lucem rose above the Piazza Tasso roundabout when we visited in July 2017.
A dark bronze statue of a robed figure with a staff beside a white wall, flowers at the base and a printed poster behind.
John Paul II outside the churchA bronze of John Paul II beside the church wall, the poster behind him reading Santo and 27 April 2014.
BELOW THE TOWN

Valley of the Mills

A gorge below Piazza Tasso, cut by two streams into tuff laid down by an eruption of the Campi Flegrei about thirty five thousand years ago. From around 1600 it held a flour mill, a sawmill that supplied the town's woodworkers, and a public wash house where the women of Sorrento did the laundry. Piazza Tasso was built in 1866 and closed the valley off. The damp that followed ended the work, and it is what has grown over the ruin since.

A ruined stone mill at the base of a steep green gorge with rock walls on either side.
The hollow around the millThe same ruin from a step along the rail, the ravine walls rising on both sides of it.
A stone arch bridging a narrow gorge, dark openings beneath it and large ferns growing in the shade below.
The arch over the ravineA broad masonry arch spans the shadowed ravine, partly screened by branches.
A tall pale rock face with green vegetation growing from ledges and cracks, blue sky above.
The rock face above the ravineSunlight catches the steep rock face above the ravine's dense vegetation.
The same roofless mill seen through dense green foliage, its dark window openings visible in the shade.
The mill a year laterThe same ruin eleven months later, the growth further up the walls.
DOWN AT THE WATER

Marina Grande

The old fishing village below the town, reached by a stair down through the walls. Boats are drawn up on the shingle and the coloured houses stand straight out of the water.

A rock headland topped with pines above a row of coloured houses in warm evening light.
The rock above the frontThe rock and its pines stand over the coloured houses, the last sun still on their fronts.
A wooden boat on a quay behind a blue railing, with a harbour, a cliff topped with pines and pastel houses beyond.
A boat on the frontA boat rests in the foreground beneath Marina Grande's waterfront houses, warmed by the evening sun.
Small fishing boats and a wooden trestle on a stony shore, with a line of waterfront buildings and a cliff behind.
Boats drawn upFishing boats drawn up beside the water at Marina Grande, the waterfront and cliff behind them.
Small boats moored along a harbour waterfront below pastel houses, with a steep wooded hillside and buildings above.
Boats below the hillsideSmall boats line the waterfront at Marina Grande, below pastel facades and the steep hillside.
WHAT THE WALLS SAY

Sculpture, Plaques and Shrines

Sorrento keeps its record out in the open. A tiled Madonna in a roadside niche, a marble plaque set into a garden wall, a war memorial on its column, and bronzes standing among the trees in the public gardens.

Blue and yellow Madonna and Child tile panel inside a stone niche, above the words Ave Maria.
The Ave Maria shrineA tiled Madonna and Child rests inside the weathered Ave Maria shrine on the walk down to Marina Grande.
A white marble plaque with an incised Italian inscription set into a stone wall, ivy growing around it.
The Benedetto Croce plaqueA marble plaque in a garden wall records that Benedetto Croce rejoined thought and action here when Italy was cut in two.
A tall stone column topped with a sculpted figure, standing in a square in front of a yellow building.
Mors ImmortalisThe war memorial column carries the words Mors Immortalis and the dates 1915 and 1918, a figure at its foot.
A dark bronze statue of a robed figure with arms raised on a plinth under trees in a garden.
Saint Francis in the gardenA bronze Saint Francis under the trees, the plinth carrying the line about the Lord's creatures.
A blue armoured samurai figure in bronze and terracotta on a white plinth beside a garden path, a printed label at its foot.
Custode Samurai VIIMatteo Pugliese's Custode Samurai VII stood outside the villa in July 2017, its placard naming the Vortici exhibition.
A life size bronze figure of a standing woman on a low plinth on a lawn, palms and trees behind.
A bronze in the public gardensA bronze figure of a woman in the public gardens, the plate at her feet naming the sculptor Alfiero Nena.
TWENTY MINUTES

Sunset over the Bay

The sun goes down over the water north of the headland. These four frames are from one evening in July, in the order they were taken, between 20:39 and 20:45.

The sun sitting on the horizon over a calm sea, a copper path of light on the water and a dark headland at the left.
20:3920:39. The sun touches the horizon and the water goes copper under it.
A vertical view of the sea at sunset, the sun half below the horizon and the sky orange above it.
20:4020:40. A minute later the disc is half gone, from the same spot on the terrace.
A calm sea after sunset with an orange band along the horizon and the sky fading to blue above.
20:4420:44. The sun is down and the afterglow spreads north along the water.
The last orange light over a dark headland and a calm sea, the sky nearly night blue.
20:4520:45. The last of the colour over the headland before the light goes flat.
INTARSIO

Inlaid Wood

Sorrento works inlaid wood, the trade the sawmill in the gorge below once supplied. The showrooms on Piazza Tasso are full of trays, panels and tabletops, each one a different pattern.

Shelves of oval and round wooden trays inlaid with floral, figurative and geometric marquetry patterns.
A wall of traysRows of inlaid trays at A. Gargiulo & Jannuzzi on Piazza Tasso, each with its own pattern of flowers, figures or geometric borders.
A large round table with elaborate floral marquetry across its polished top, more inlaid tables behind it.
The round tableFloral inlay spreads across polished tabletops in the Gargiulo & Jannuzzi showroom.
A large oval inlaid table on a showroom floor, with cabinets and more inlaid tables behind it.
A table on the showroom floorA large inlaid table on the Gargiulo & Jannuzzi showroom floor, more of them behind it.
Three framed marquetry panels showing figures, displayed in a shop window.
The shop windowFramed marquetry panels in a shop window, worked in coloured woods.
THE CLOISTER

San Francesco

The cloister of San Francesco, above Marina Piccola, with interlaced pointed arches on slender octagonal columns around a planted courtyard.

A cloister courtyard with interlaced pointed arches on slender octagonal columns around a planted garden.
The cloister of San FrancescoSlender columns and paired arches frame the courtyard of the Chiostro di San Francesco.
A white cloister wall with an arcade below and magenta bougainvillea flowering above it, a willow at the right.
Bougainvillea over the arcadeBougainvillea comes over the wall above the cloister arcade.
A cloister courtyard seen from one corner, two arcaded walks meeting at a right angle.
The courtyard from the cornerThe courtyard from the corner, the arcade running away on two sides.
A cloister courtyard with a willow at the right and an arcade of pointed arches along the far wall.
Across the courtyardThe willow and the arcade from across the cloister courtyard, a lit doorway on the far side.

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