Monte Nuovo
Pozzuoli (NA)
Hidden gemVolcanoes
The story
Born in a single night from a sixteenth-century eruption, the youngest mountain of the Campi Flegrei holds within its crater a green silence looking out over the gulf of Pozzuoli.
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More gems in Pozzuoli
History & archaeologyAnfiteatro Flavio
Pozzuoli
The third largest Roman amphitheatre, at Pozzuoli: above ground the tiers, but it is underground that it strikes you, in the intact passages from which the beasts rose.
- History & archaeology
Tempio di Serapide (Macellum)
Pozzuoli
Not a temple but the ancient Roman market: on the marble columns the holes bored by marine molluscs tell how much the Flegrean ground has risen and sunk over the centuries.
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.
History & archaeologyRione Terra
Pozzuoli (NA)
On the acropolis of Pozzuoli, evacuated in 1970 because of bradyseism, the Rione Terra guards beneath its houses an intact Roman town of streets, workshops and paved hinges.
Nature & hikingLago d'Averno
Pozzuoli (NA)
In the extinct crater of a volcano, the still waters of Averno: for the ancients the threshold of the underworld, the one Aeneas crossed to descend into the kingdom of shadows.
More gems: Volcanoes
VolcanoesVesuvio — Gran Cono
Ercolano
The last stretch climbs on foot over the scree to the rim of the crater, where the warm breath of the earth mixes with the view of the whole Gulf of Naples.
VolcanoesMonte Epomeo
Ischia
The roof of the island at almost eight hundred metres: from the green tufo summit, with its hermitage carved into the rock, the eye takes in all of Ischia and the bay as far as Capri.
VolcanoesCratere degli Astroni
Napoli (NA)
An extinct crater enclosed by wooded walls, with small lakes and silent trails: once a Bourbon hunting reserve, today an oasis where the woodpecker marks the time.
- Volcanoes
Vulcano di Roccamonfina
Roccamonfina (CE)
An extinct volcano clothed in chestnut groves, where the crater has become a plateau and every trail smells of dark earth and ancient woods.
- Volcanoes
Monte Rotaro (cratere e fumarole)
Ischia (NA)
A crater 350 metres across and 127 deep, today covered in holm oaks and myrtle. Puffs of vapour still rise from the ground, and among the fumarole grows a plant that hardly grows anywhere else in Europe.
- Volcanoes
Cratere del Fondo d'Oglio
Ischia (NA)
A perfectly circular hollow hidden in the wood: inside they still grow vines, at the bottom of a volcano. Whoever descends cannot tell where they are until they look up.