Posillipo
11 places
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 & 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.
- History & archaeology
Parco Archeologico del Pausilypon
Posillipo
The imperial villa of Vedius Pollio looking over the Gaiola: theatre and odeion among the pines, there where the Romans called this place the pause from pain.
- History & archaeology
Grotta di Seiano
Posillipo
A Roman tunnel nearly eight hundred metres long bores through the hill in the dark, then opens onto the light of the Gaiola valley and the villa of Pausilypon.
Free beachesIsola
Posillipo
The "cursed" island: owners struck by suicides and misfortune (Agnelli, Getty); a marine protected area with submerged ruins; guided snorkelling with CSI Gaiola ~€20, glass-bottom boat ~€12; 150 steps.
Free beachesParco Sommerso della Gaiola
Posillipo
Two islets of tufo (volcanic tuff) joined by a fragile arch, a marine protected area: you swim above submerged Roman ruins while the legend speaks of a cursed island.
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.
CastlesPalazzo Donn'Anna
Posillipo
The unfinished seventeenth-century palace juts sheer over the water, dark and labyrinthine: through its empty rooms legend has the shadow of Donn'Anna still wandering.
- 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.