Cascate e mulini del Vallone Martorano
Sant'Agata de' Goti (BN)
Hidden gemIn the water & diving
The story
Beneath the tufo (volcanic tuff) spur on which the borgo (old village) seems to float, the water plunges in a series of leaps among the ruins of mills and an old ironworks: the water trail that no visitor to Sant'Agata ever climbs down to find.
Access
FREE, open trail
More gems in Sant'Agata de' Goti
VillagesSant'Agata de' Goti
Sant'Agata de' Goti (BN)
The houses lean out over the void, clinging to a spur of tufo (volcanic tuff) above the stream: a stone balcony in mid-air that the Goths chose and time has never let go.
CastlesCastello Ducale di Sant'Agata de' Goti
Sant'Agata de' Goti (BN)
In the borgo (old village) perched on the tufo (volcanic tuff) ridge, the ducal castle overlooks houses that seem to plunge into the ravine: silent courtyards, frescoes and time that seems to have stopped.
- In the water & diving
Lavatoio Reullo
Sant'Agata de' Goti (BN)
Three stone basins under a fourteenth-century pointed arch, where the Isclero meets the Riello: here women washed their laundry until only yesterday, and the underground water has never stopped arriving.
- Views & panoramas
Ponte Vecchio di Sant'Agata de' Goti
Sant'Agata de' Goti (BN)
The exact point where Sant'Agata stops being a town and becomes an apparition: the houses clinging to the tufo ridge, suspended over the void.
- Sacred art
Chiesa dell'Annunziata e il Giudizio Universale
Sant'Agata de' Goti (BN)
Across the whole inner façade, an early fifteenth-century Last Judgement: Christ the judge welcomes with one hand and turns away with the other. It is painted on the west wall, so that the setting sun itself lights up the end of the world.
Sacred artChiesa di San Menna
Sant'Agata de' Goti (BN)
Consecrated by Pope Paschal II in 1100, it holds one of the oldest Cosmatesque floors in the South. Yet the saint himself was a hermit of the Taburno who died in a cave: the luxury came only after him.
More gems: In the water & diving
In the water & divingParco Sommerso di Baia
Bacoli
A Roman city swallowed by the sea through bradyseism: mosaics, columns and statues visited from a glass-bottomed boat or with a mask.
In the water & divingGrotta Azzurra
Anacapri
You enter lying flat in a small rowing boat through a low cleft, and inside the water lights up in a luminous blue that seems to rise from the depths.
- In the water & diving
Grotta Bianca
Capri
Pale limestone walls in a two-chambered cavity hollowed out by the sea, once a shelter for boats and a hiding place from pirate raids.
In the water & divingVerde
Capri
The water turns emerald green where light filters in through a submerged opening, and at the far end a small pebble beach lies hidden.
- In the water & diving
Meravigliosa
Capri
A stairway carved into the rock leads to a vault thick with stalactites and stalagmites, suspended above the Grotta Bianca and the island's thousand-year-old strata.
- In the water & diving
Punta Pizzaco e Solchiaro (snorkeling)
Procida
On the southern side, between the cliffs of Solchiaro and the walls of Pizzaco, clear water and rocky seabeds invite you to swim with a mask, far from the crowds.