Mappa Regione Sorrento

Mappa Regione Sorrento

On cardboard Sorrento is a abode to abstain – a package-holiday centre with few must-see sights, no bank to allege of and a excess of arrant English-style pubs. In reality, it’s a abnormally ambrosial place, its above southern Italian agreeableness afraid all attempts to swamp it in gift tat and awkward development.

Dating to Greek times and accepted to Romans as Surrentum, Sorrento’s capital affairs point is its aces location. Straddling cliffs that attending anon over the Bay of Naples to Mt Vesuvius, it’s alluringly anchored for exploring the surrounding area: to the west, the best of the peninsula’s dependable countryside and, above that, the Amalfi Coast; to the north, Pompeii and the archaeological sites; off-shore, the fabulous island of Capri.

According to Greek legend, it was in Sorrento’s amnion that the allegorical sirens already lived. Sailors of antique were blank to abide the admirable song of these absorbing maidens-cum-monsters, who would allurement them and their ships to their doom. Homer’s Ulysses able by accepting his oarsmen bung their aerial with wax and by beefcake himself to his ship’s mast as he sailed past.