Introduction to the region: Campania
Attribution: CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32773
My love affair with the Campania region had a relatively slow start. In 2007 while living in Rome for the first time as a student, I visited the Costa Amalfitana by car. This experience is quite orthodox now as the drive has been named one of the most spectacular in the world. This means, however, you can encounter some traffic during your scenic drive.
A view down the Amalfi Coast from Positano
I changed my opinion on this region after voyaging up and down the coast by private boat and hiking the Sentiero Degli Dei (the Path of the Gods). More on these experiences and the best ways to make them happen in the regional features post.
‘La Rondinaia’ as seen from the water below Ravello on the Amalfi Coast
Still, the region of Campania is probably best known for this famous UNESCO recognized coast and the scenic drive between towns. Some of the most recognizable names are Sorrentino, Positano, and the namesake, Amalfi. It was during the 1950s, and the post-war boom with the so-called economic miracle that the now cliche image of driving a sleek car around the undulating curves of the coast emerged. This is fitting, of course, as one of the Italian industries that ‘boomed’ was the car industry. Films from the 1950s and 1960s such as Beat the Devil (1953) and It Started in Naples (1960) capture the feel of these decades and brought Hollywood stars to the area. Celebrities and politicians flocked; famously, Jacqueline Kennedy visited in the summer of 1962. Interestingly, Ravello was the epicenter for visitors during these years and it has ‘somewhat’ fallen off of the tourist radar in the 21st century. Gore Vidal owned a conspicuous white villa here, wedged into the cliffside in the area of Ravello, which you can admire from the sea and the land. Named ‘La Rondinaia’ (the swallow’s nest) it is now a luxury resort open for bookings. I will feature other towns on the coast, Vietri Sul Mare and Salerno, that do not have the name recognition of the aforementioned towns in the regional features post.
Filmed in 1999, but set in this golden era of the 1950s, is the adapted The Talented Mr. Ripley; it captures the aura and beauty of the Amalfi coast during this era.
Regarding islands off the Amalfi coast, you have probably heard of Capri. It has figured into the fame of the Costiera Amalfitana from the golden age as well. The ancient association is with the second emperor of Rome, Tiberius, who built a grand network of villas here and ruled the empire from the small island until his death in 37 CE. The Grotta Azzurra (blue grotto) is another one of the famed tourist sites near Capri.
Vesuvio over the bay of Naples
At Pompeii in 2004, on my first trip to Italy
Another grand symbol this region is Mount Vesuvius. In Sicilia there is Etna, and Campania has Vesuvio, an active volcano that towers above the bay of Naples. Vesuvius is closely tied to the archeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were declared UNESCO World Heritage sites for how they “provide a complete and vivid picture of society and daily life at a specific moment in the past that is without parallel anywhere in the world.” Vesuvius famously erupted in 79 CE and buried these cities in ash. Careful excavations from the mid 18th century on, have allowed us this insight into the ‘vivid picture of society and daily life’ of people living here at the moment the unprecedented eruption occurred over 2,000 years ago.
The Campania region is full of UNESCO recognized spots, as evidenced from this introductory post, and there is another, perhaps more obscure one in Caserta, a city and province north of Napoli. The UNESCO site is the 18th Century Royal Palace with the Park, the Aqueduct of Vanvitelli, and the San Leucio Complex, “ created by the Bourbon king Charles III in the mid-18th century to rival Versailles and the Royal Palace in Madrid,” according to the official website.
There are, of course, even more treasures to be discovered in this large southern region; explore the regional features for more of my favorites.