Views & panoramas
50 places
Views & panoramasBelvedere di San Martino
Vomero
From the forecourt of the Certosa the gaze drops sheer onto Naples: the rooftops of the old centre, the bay, Vesuvius and the islands far off — all in a single frame.
Views & panoramasFontana del Gigante
via Partenope
A seventeenth-century fountain by Pietro Bernini and Naccherino, moved again and again before settling on the seafront: marble and tritons facing the water, in the shadow of Castel dell'Ovo.
Views & panoramasGran Caffè Gambrinus
P.za Trieste e Trento
Mirrors, stucco and Belle Époque velvet: at the counter you order an espresso and, by old Neapolitan custom, you leave a second one paid for whoever comes next.
◆ Views & panoramasPalazzo Mannajuolo (scala ellittica)
via Filangieri
The elliptical staircase climbs in a perfect spiral of steps and Liberty-style railings: lean over from the top and the eye falls into a vortex of stone.
◆ Views & panoramasRampe di Pizzofalcone
Monte di Dio
The ramps drop in hairpins from Monte di Dio, between old walls and sudden glimpses of the sea: a slow shortcut worth taking for the view alone.
Views & panoramasParco Virgiliano
Posillipo
At the far end of Posillipo the terraces look out over the islet of Nisida and the open sea: from here the eye takes in the whole gulf and the Campi Flegrei.
Views & panoramasMarechiaro e la Fenestella
Posillipo
The fishing borgo (old village) where Salvatore Di Giacomo imagined the fenestella with its carnation: below, the shallow water and Vesuvius closing the horizon.
Views & panoramasFaraglioni
Capri
The three rocks that symbolise the island, rising from the sea, one pierced by a natural arch beneath which boats pass for a good-luck kiss.
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.
Views & panoramasPositano — punto foto classico
Via C. Colombo/Sponda
From the bend of via Cristoforo Colombo, at the entrance to the village, Positano reveals itself all at once: cascading houses, the majolica dome and the sea closing the scene.
Views & panoramasLi Galli
Positano
Three islets offshore where Homer placed the sirens, and where later Léonide Massine and Rudolf Nureyev chose their own refuge on the sea.
Views & panoramasPalazzo dello Spagnolo
Napoli (NA)
In the Sanità district the Palazzo dello Spagnolo opens its courtyard onto a double-ramp staircase, wings of stucco like a falcon's: baroque turned into stagecraft.
Views & panoramasLe Vele di Scampia
Napoli (NA)
Le Vele di Scampia, enormous sail-shaped structures designed in the 1970s, remain a controversial icon of the Neapolitan periphery, between demolitions and the memory of redemption.
Views & panoramasMostra d'Oltremare
Napoli (NA)
Among the rationalist avenues of Fuorigrotta, geometric fountains and the Torre delle Nazioni sketch a suspended 1940s landscape, where architecture becomes the perfect stage set for the camera.
◆ Views & panoramasTorre di Punta Licosa
Castellabate (SA)
At the tip of Castellabate, where the sea turns crystalline and the scrub is fragrant with myrtle, a torre di avvistamento (watchtower) gazes at the islet bound to the myth of the siren Leucosia.
Views & panoramasTorre Normanna di Acciaroli
Pollica (SA)
In the little harbour of Acciaroli, a fishing borgo (old village) looking out over the Cilento, a medieval tower rises above the moored boats and a sea that turns turquoise in summer.
Views & panoramasFaro di Capo Palinuro
Centola (SA)
On the headland that bears the name of Aeneas's helmsman, the lighthouse watches over sheer cliffs and a sea that carves blue grottoes into the rock.
Views & panoramasFaro di Punta Carena
Anacapri (NA)
At the western tip of Capri, among flat rocks where you dive into the blue, the lighthouse marks one of the island's most intense and long-awaited sunsets.
◆ Views & panoramasFaro di Capo Miseno
Bacoli (NA)
At the mouth of the Campi Flegrei, the headland that was the base of the Roman fleet closes the gulf with a lighthouse overlooking Procida, Ischia and the sea of Miseno.
◆ Views & panoramasTorre di Velia
Ascea (SA)
On the acropolis of ancient Elea, home of the philosophers Parmenides and Zeno, a medieval tower rises among the Greek ruins and commands the plain down to the Cilento sea.
◆ Views & panoramasTorre degli Infreschi
Camerota (SA)
Reachable only by sea or on foot, the tower watches over a bay near Camerota where freshwater springs surface among the rocks and the coves stay wild.
Views & panoramasBelvedere di Sant'Agata sui Due Golfi
Massa Lubrense (NA)
From here, in a single glance, the two gulfs: Naples with Vesuvius on one side, Salerno and the mountains on the other, with the watershed of the Sorrento peninsula underfoot.
◆ Views & panoramasParco Urbano ed Eremo dei Camaldoli
Napoli (NA)
The roof of Naples, 458 metres. From here, in a single glance: Vesuvius, the Campi Flegrei, Capri, Ischia, Procida and the Monti Lattari. Behind you, a hermitage of 1585 where nuns still live.
Views & panoramasPontile Nord di Bagnoli
Napoli (NA)
Nine hundred metres of concrete running out into the sea: it was the Italsider pier, where the steel was loaded. Today you walk out over the bay, with Nisida ahead and the chimneys behind. At sunset it feels unreal.
◆ Views & panoramasGuardia Lombardi
Guardia Lombardi (AV)
The name says it all: a Lombard lookout at almost a thousand metres, where on clear days you can see the Vulture and the Picentini together. The wind here never stops, and the old folk say it carries the voices of the villages below.
◆ Views & panoramasMonte Castello di Castel Morrone
Castel Morrone (CE)
On 1 October 1860, while Garibaldi was gambling the Kingdom on the Volturno, three hundred men under Pilade Bronzetti held out up here against thousands of Bourbon troops until the major fell. Above the walls stand an abandoned sanctuary and a silence that still tastes of that day.
- Views & panoramas
Lungomare
via Partenope
A seafront walk from via Partenope: Vesuvius straight ahead, Castel dell'Ovo out on the water, and all of Naples strolling slowly through the evening between a gelato and the horizon.
- Views & panoramas
Terrazza di Sant'Antonio (tredici scese)
Posillipo
Thirteen flights of steps climb to the terrace of Sant'Antonio, where the gulf lines up like a postcard: Vesuvius, sea and city in a single glance.
- Views & panoramas
Via Petrarca / Via Orazio
Posillipo
The two roads run halfway up the hill of Posillipo, natural terraces suspended over the gulf: little villas, bougainvillea and the sea appearing between one bend and the next.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Belvedere Stupor Mundi
Monte di Procida
A terrace suspended on the tufo (volcanic tuff) sheer above the sea, from which the eye runs to Procida, Ischia and Capri, all the way to Capo Miseno.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Punta Scutolo e belvedere di Arola/Monte Comune
Vico Equense
The headland that divides two gulfs and, higher up, the plateau of Monte Comune above Arola, from where the eye takes in Naples and Salerno in a single sweep of the horizon.
- Views & panoramas
Salto di Tiberio
Capri
The sheer cliff beside Villa Jovis, from which legend says Tiberius had those who betrayed him thrown into the sea: three hundred metres of void beneath your feet.
- Views & panoramas
Belvedere di Tragara
Capri
At the end of the lane lined with villas and bougainvillea, the terrace where the Faraglioni line up perfectly, three rocks rising from the blue like the island's signature.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Belvedere di Punta Cannone
Capri
Climbing through alleys and gardens beyond the Certosa, a rock balcony hanging over Marina Piccola, with the Faraglioni on the left and the wind arriving from two seas.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Parco Astarita
Capri
Terraces looking out over the sea through Mediterranean scrub, where the gaze drifts slowly toward the Sorrento peninsula and the coast, far from the hurried pace of the town centre.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Belvedere della Migliera
Anacapri
At the end of the Migliera walk, among vegetable plots and vineyards, the terrace opens onto the Punta Carena lighthouse and the vertical drop of Monte Solaro.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Belvedere Elsa Morante e dei Cannoni
Procida
From the terrace named after Elsa Morante, among old cannons trained on the bay, the view opens onto the Corricella and its pastel houses heaped upon the water.
- Views & panoramas
Casa del Portuale
Napoli (NA)
On the port of Napoli, Aldo Loris Rossi's Casa del Portuale rises like a concrete spaceship, brutalist architecture whose cylindrical pillars are inspired by the quayside silos.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Faro di Capo d'Orso
Maiori (SA)
Suspended over the Costiera between Maiori and Cetara, the lighthouse guards a rocky cape where the road climbs and the gaze runs to the mountains plunging into the sea.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Villa Comunale di Vietri
Vietri sul Mare (SA)
In the town of ceramics, a small public garden on the hill's edge from which the gaze runs along the whole coast as far as the Due Fratelli.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Punta Caruso
Forio (NA)
A spur of black lava plunging into a sea that shifts from turquoise to ink blue within three metres of depth. No sand: you climb down from the rocks, as the islanders have always done.
- Views & panoramas
Faro di Punta Imperatore
Forio (NA)
Built in 1884, 160 metres above the sea, it is one of the tallest lighthouses on the Tyrrhenian. You climb up on foot from Via Costa, and at a certain point the island's sounds vanish: only the wind and your own breath remain.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Scoglio della Nave
Forio (NA)
A rock that, seen from the lighthouse, looks like a stone sailing ship that will never make port. For centuries the fishermen of Panza have used it as a landmark for finding their way home.
- Views & panoramas
Scogli di Sant'Anna
Ischia (NA)
Three teeth of rock facing the Castello Aragonese. Every 26 July the sea here fills with lit-up boats and at the end the Castello burns amid the fireworks: it is the Festa di Sant'Anna, and for one night the island re-enacts its own blaze.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Montagnone
Ischia (NA)
The volcanic dome that looks straight down onto the port of Ischia, a crater in the middle of the inhabited island. From the top you see the Vesuvio ahead and Procida to the side, and under your feet there is lava.
- Views & panoramas
Belvedere dei Frassitelli
Forio (NA)
A natural terrace at 600 metres above the vine terraces, with Punta Imperatore and the open sea beneath your feet. It is the balcony from which the farmers watched to see if the storm was coming.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Belvedere di Monte Cotto
Barano d'Ischia (NA)
The terrace from which the Maronti open up in full, from the Castello to the headlands of Sant'Angelo. Sunset without the crowd, and without a ticket.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Punta Pizzaco
Procida (NA)
The headland from which you can see Ischia on one side, Capri on the other and the whole Gulf in between. At sunset it is the best spot on Procida, and almost nobody climbs up here.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Punta Solchiaro
Procida (NA)
The island's southernmost point, a balcony of tufo (volcanic tuff) over Vivara and the channel of Procida. The wind here never stops.
- 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.