Baia di San Montano
Lacco Ameno (NA)
KnownFree beaches
The story
A crescent sheltered from the winds, with shallow, clear water turning turquoise: Ischia's gentlest bay, cradled between two green headlands.
How to get there
- Hydrofoil
- Ferry
Hours and prices
Free entry.
More gems in Lacco Ameno
Views & panoramasFungo di Lacco Ameno
Lacco Ameno
A tufo rock shaped by wind and sea until it came to look like a mushroom: it rises a few steps from the shore and has become the emblem of Lacco Ameno.
◆ History & archaeologyScavi e Museo di Santa Restituta
Lacco Ameno (NA)
Beneath the basilica you descend into a layered underground: Greek kilns, an early Christian necropolis, tombs and oil lamps. Above is the martyr saint who arrived from the sea on a boat without oars; below are the real dead, one stratum after another.
- ◆ History & archaeology
Villa Arbusto (Coppa di Nestore)
Lacco Ameno
The museum villa of Lacco Ameno holds the Coppa di Nestore, an 8th-century BC vessel incised with one of the oldest Greek verses ever found.
- In the water & diving
Parco Termale Negombo
Lacco Ameno (NA)
A botanical garden descending to the bay of San Montano, with thermal pools hidden among rare plants, artworks and the blue of the sea.
- ◆ History & archaeology
Monte Vico — acropoli di Pithekoussai
Lacco Ameno (NA)
On this promontory, in the 8th century BC, the Greeks of Euboea founded the first permanent settlement of the West. From here set out the alphabet that would become Rome's, and with it everything else.
More gems: Free beaches
Free beachesBaia di Ieranto
Nerano
The bay protected by the FAI that looks across at the Faraglioni of Capri, reachable only on foot among olive trees and scrub, with the clear water of an old quarry.
◆ Free beachesFiordo
Massa Lubrense
A cleft in the rock where the sea slips in, narrow and green, almost always shaded beneath high walls: you don't come here for the sun, but for the silence.
- ◆ Free beaches
Lido delle Monache / spiaggia libera di Posillipo e Riva Fiorita
Posillipo
Tiny coves among the rocks, once the bathing place of the nuns of a convent above the sea: almost secret free beaches, reachable mostly from the water.
- ◆ Free beaches
Baia di Trentaremi
Posillipo
A bay closed in by high cliffs of yellow tufo (volcanic tuff), with caves cut by the Romans: no road reaches it, only the sea and the kayaks slip in among the rocks.
- ◆ Free beaches
Capo Miseno e porticciolo di Acquamorta
Bacoli/Monte di Procida
The headland that closes the gulf and, at its foot, the little harbour of Acquamorta with the boats hauled ashore and the water shallow and clear.
- ◆ Free beaches
Cala di Mitigliano e grotta
Massa Lubrense
A path through olive trees drops down to the rocks, Capri looks an arm's length away, and the cave opens in the water like a hall of shadow and salt.