This tour includes a local English-speaking guide at your disposal for 2 hours: Your private guide will meet You at Sorrento.
Writers, painters and even musicians have been inspired by the incredible beauty of this place.
Sorrento Coast, which juts into the Tyrrhenian Sea as a kind of partition separating the Gulf of Naples and Salerno, is renowned for its mild climate and its pleasant villages. We could define Sorrento as the gem of the peninsula, which shines with a special glow.
The city is located on a tufa rock terrace, overlooking the sea , and gives its name to the entire promontory due to its celebrity.
The Gentile , (The kind): this is how Sorrento is nicknamed, and today it is a famous climate and well equipped seaside resort, with an extraordinarily mild climate even during the winter months.
Sorrento, overlooking the sea , dominated by the profile of the Lattari mountains and surrounded by deep gorges , was probably founded by the Greeks.
It seems that the urban primitive city was Roman and Sorrento became a popular place with wealthy Romans who built luxurious villas there.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, in the XIII and XIV centuries with the Angevins Sorrento boasts a remarkable development of civil architecture ( e.g. Palazzo Veniero , Palazzo Correale).
In the following centuries the city went through one of the most serious crisis because Sorrento objected several times to Spanish rule . Also at that time epidemics and the incursion of the Turks in 1558 caused death and devastation
After this Turkish invasion, in Sorrento weres rebuilt the walls that ended with a castle which was located where the current Piazza Tasso is today. Also towers were built on neighbouring promontories whose traces still remain.
Despite so many difficulties, Sorrento developed its centre also because at that time religious orders had settled there.
In the XVIII century, Sorrento, which was located near Pompeii and Herculaneum, became one the destinations of the Grand Tour.
Today Sorrento offers the visitor great art surprises.
A monument of particular interest is the Cathedral of Sorrento, of ancient origin , but rebuilt in the XV century. Of great importance are the portico that uses two ancient Roman columns and the lateral portal bearing the coat of arms of Pope Sixtus V, the King of Aragon and the Archbishop De Angelis.
Another interesting building is the Sedile Dominova, which dates back to the XV century: note the majolica dome.
Gothic is the cloister of San Francesco which features pointed arches , but on two of its sides the arches are semi-circular after a restoration for subsequent years.
It is worth visiting also the Correale Museum, built by Alfredo and Pompeo Correale.
The brothers wanted to share with the Sorrentine population their extraordinary wealth, precisely because of the variety and uniqueness of their family collection , which was donated so along with his home to the town of Sorrento.
Pompeo Correale died unmarried April 12, 1900; his brother Alfredo, married in 1878 with Angelica de ' Medici of Princes Ottajano , died August 16, 1902.
The museum boasts the archaeological section on the ground floor which offers the visitor a rich testimony of history of the ancient Sorrento. The findings date back to the Imperial age.
Also on the ground floor paintings and furnishings are displayed. The pictorial section proposes the portraits of Alfredo Correale , his wife Angelica De ' Medici and the count Pompeo Correale, dating back to the second half of the XIX century. On the right is the family tree and the livery of the house. Valuable is also the section of the furnishings with Neapolitan drawers (XVII century), with musical instruments, tables and panels of inlaid wooden works from Sorrento, gift of the writer Silvio Salvatore Gargiulo .
On the first floor are two sections that can be admired: the pictorial and porcelain ones. The pictorial section proposes portraits of gentlemen and ladies as well as landscapes. In addition one can find Pietà " by A. Vaccaro, matrix of Caravaggio 's . The landscapes are by Domenico Gargiulo and " Marina with fishermen" by Salvator Rosa.
On the second floor there are paintings of the school of Posillipo ( Giovan Baptist Ruoppolo , Andrea Belvedere , Gaetano Cusati). The school was formed by Neapolitan artists and foreigners. The latter, in fact, arrived in Italy in the wake of the Grand Tour, and they painted on spot with bright colours and immediacy characteristics of Sorrento and Naples. landscape
On the penthouse one can find the section of the porcelains (XVIII – XIX centuries) : Capodimonte, Sevres, Meissen Veuve Perrin objects are displayed for having a complete vision of the manufacture of the porcelain in Europe in that period.
