Montepertuso
Positano
Hidden gemNature
The story
Above Positano, a hole carved in the rock pierces the mountain and frames the sky: legend credits it to the Madonna, who defied the devil.
Access
FREE
Hours and prices
Free entry.
More gems in Positano
Sacred artChiesa di Santa Maria Assunta
Positano (SA)
In the heart of Positano, the dome of yellow and green majolica rises above the roofs; inside, the Byzantine icon of the black Madonna watches over the village facing the sea.
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.
- Sacred art
Madonna Nera
Positano
In the church of Santa Maria Assunta a Byzantine icon with a dark face keeps watch over the sea: legend says it was she who gave Positano its name.
- Free beaches
Spiaggia di Fornillo
Positano
A path sheer above the sea leads away from the Spiaggia Grande to the pebble cove the people of Positano keep for themselves, in the shade of the torri saracene (Saracen watchtowers).
- Free beaches
Torre Trasita
Positano
The Saracen tower rising on the spur between the two beaches, a sentinel of stone now turned private home, closes every postcard of Positano.
More gems: Nature
◆ NatureOrto 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.
◆ NaturePedamentina 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.
NatureVilla 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.
NatureAcquario 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.
NatureSolfatara
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.
- ◆ Nature
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.