Giardini Ravino
Forio
Hidden gemNature & hiking
The story
Between the vineyards of the Epomeo and the sea of Forio, a garden of cacti and succulents: one of the richest collections in Europe, among century-old saguaros and rare species.
Access
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More gems in Forio
Sacred artChiesa del Soccorso
Forio
White and plain on the headland of Forio, the sailors' church faces the open sea: here, among majolica tiles and ex voto, people come to wait for one of the island's most famous sunsets.
- In the water & diving
Baia di Sorgeto
Forio (NA)
On Ischia, where boiling thermal springs gush among the rocks and mingle with the sea, the bay of Sorgeto offers a warm bath even in winter, under the stars.
Nature & hikingGiardini La Mortella
Forio (NA)
Above Forio, the gardens that Susana Walton cultivated for her composer husband: tree ferns, water lilies and streams in an amphitheatre of volcanic rock facing the Ischia sea.
- In the water & diving
Parco Termale Poseidon
Forio (NA)
On the bay of Citara dozens of pools at different temperatures face the sea, among flowering terraces and the sunset that sets the water of Forio ablaze.
- Museums
Il Torrione (Museo Civico Giovanni Maltese)
Forio (NA)
Built in 1480 to spot Saracen sails, this cylinder of tufo (volcanic tuff) became four centuries later the home-studio of the sculptor Giovanni Maltese, who lived here into the twentieth century. Today his sculptures still inhabit the tower that once had to defend Forio from pirates.
VillagesCentro storico di Forio
Forio (NA)
The alleys of Forio are not crooked by chance: they were designed to confuse Ottoman corsairs, a labyrinth that stole precious minutes from the escape. To walk them today is to get lost on purpose, just as they were meant to.
More gems: Nature & hiking
Nature & hikingOrto Botanico
via Foria
Founded in the Napoleonic age, the botanical garden on via Foria lines up glasshouses, palms and rare species across twelve hectares: a green breath a step away from the traffic.
- Nature & hiking
Pedamentina di San Martino
Vomero→centro
A fourteenth-century stairway dropping from the hill of San Martino down to the city: hundreds of steps through vegetable plots, gardens and glimpses of the bay — one of the finest urban paths in Naples.
- Nature & hiking
Vigna di San Martino
collina S. Martino
One of the largest urban vineyards in Europe, worked by the Carthusians since the fourteenth century: seven hectares of vines, citrus and olive trees hanging over the bay, a step from the city's chaos.
Nature & hikingVilla Comunale
Riviera di Chiaia
The garden stretched out along the sea at Chiaia: avenues of holm oaks, benches and old statues, with the gulf breathing beyond the iron railing.
- Nature & hiking
Acquario Anton Dohrn
Riviera di Chiaia
The oldest aquarium in Europe, opened in 1874 inside the Villa Comunale: historic tanks inhabited only by the fauna of the Gulf of Naples, behind the glass.
Nature & hikingSolfatara
Pozzuoli
The ground breathes: hissing fumaroles, mud that boils up and a smell of sulphur reminding you how alive the earth is beneath the Campi Flegrei.