Grotta delle Felci
Capri
Hidden gemHistory & archaeology
The story
A prehistoric cave on the southern slope, where excavations have yielded traces of Neolithic people, reached by a path through the ferns.
Access
exterior/trail
More gems in Capri
History & archaeologyVilla Jovis
Capri
On the highest, loneliest point of the island, the ruins of the villa from which Tiberius ruled the empire for ten years, among cisterns, terraces and the emptiness of the sea all around.
- 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.
CastlesVilla Lysis (Fersen)
Capri
Built in 1905 by the poet Fersen and dedicated to love and to sorrow, an Art Nouveau villa among the pines, with a Latin inscription at the entrance and the opium room hidden below.
Nature & hikingArco Naturale
Capri
An arch of rock suspended among the holm oaks, sheer above the sea, all that remains of an ancient collapsed cave, at the end of a path above Matermania.
Nature & hikingGrotta di Matermania
Capri
A great cave that the Romans turned into a nymphaeum, with niches and traces of stucco facing the dawn, perhaps consecrated to the Magna Mater from which it takes its name.
- Nature & hiking
Pizzolungo
Capri
The path that runs along the hillside among the myrtle bushes, passing beneath Malaparte's house until it opens onto the Faraglioni seen from above.
More gems: History & archaeology
History & archaeologyStatua del Nilo ("Corpo di Napoli")
Largo Corpo di Napoli
A river god reclining for centuries in a quiet square, whom Neapolitans call the Corpo di Napoli: he leans his bearded head among putti and a sphinx.
History & archaeologyCappella Pontano
Decumani
A small Renaissance temple on the decumanus, which the humanist Pontano had raised for his lost wife, still lined inside with Latin inscriptions dictated by his grief.
- History & archaeology
Sedile di Nilo
Decumani
On the corner of a small Spaccanapoli square survives the seat of the old Nilo quarter, where the nobles once gathered before the sedili of Naples vanished.
History & archaeologyPort'Alba
Napoli
A seventeenth-century arch cut into the walls leads to the booksellers' street, where stalls of second-hand volumes pile up among yellowed pages and the shade of the old city.
History & archaeologyPorta Capuana
zona Garibaldi
Between two cylindrical towers an arch of white marble opens like a Renaissance triumph, the old city gate facing the road to Capua.
- History & archaeology
MANN — Museo Archeologico Nazionale
P.za Museo
One of the world's great archaeological museums: here the Toro Farnese, the mosaics of Pompeii and the Gabinetto Segreto tell the whole ancient Mediterranean in a single visit.