Ischia
55 places
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.
VillagesBorgo di Sant'Angelo
Serrara Fontana
A car-free fishing village, its terraced houses stepping down to a sandy isthmus tied to the islet: a little square, boats, and the fumarole of the nearby Maronti beach.
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.
Views & panoramasFungo di Lacco Ameno
Lacco Ameno
A tufo rock shaped by wind and sea until it came to look like a mushroom: it rises a few steps from the shore and has become the emblem of Lacco Ameno.
◆ CastlesTorre di Guevara
Ischia
Raised at the end of the fifteenth century on the meadow of Cartaromana, the tower also known as di Michelangelo faces the Castello Aragonese and the Sant'Anna rocks, and now frames art exhibitions.
NatureGiardini 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 & divingParco 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.
Free beachesSpiaggia dei Maronti
Barano d'Ischia (NA)
The island's longest beach, golden beneath walls of tufo (volcanic tuff), where in places the sand steams and the seawater warms itself.
MuseumsIl 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.
Sacred artBasilica di Santa Maria di Loreto
Forio (NA)
The mother church of Forio, with its majolica onion-domed bell tower, holds the canvases the people of Forio saved from raids by hiding them in the caves. Inside, gold and marble tell of a village that lived on wine and on fear.
Free beachesSpiaggia di San Francesco
Forio (NA)
Pale sand beneath the Zaro cliffs, with the little church of San Francesco standing guard. It's the beach Forio goes to when it doesn't feel like climbing the steps.
Sacred artCattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta (Ischia Ponte)
Ischia (NA)
When the cathedral on the Castello was destroyed by English cannon fire in 1809, the bishops moved down to the valley and built a new one at the foot of the bridge. Beneath the present church survives the medieval crypt with frescoes of the Giottesque school.
◆ History & archaeologyScavi e Museo di Santa Restituta
Lacco Ameno (NA)
Beneath the basilica you descend into a layered underground: Greek kilns, an early Christian necropolis, tombs and oil lamps. Above is the martyr saint who arrived from the sea on a boat without oars; below are the real dead, one stratum after another.
◆ Sacred artChiesa di Sant'Antonio al Mortito
Casamicciola Terme (NA)
A small hillside church in a Casamicciola that has learnt to live with the ground that trembles and the mountain that slides down.
Sacred artEremo di San Nicola all'Epomeo
Serrara Fontana (NA)
A hermitage carved entirely out of the tufo just below the summit of the Epomeo. Here, in the eighteenth century, Giuseppe d'Argouth, commander of the Castello Aragonese, withdrew: after a life of arms he became a monk and died here, in a cell of rock.
- Free beaches
Baia di Cartaromana
Ischia
A small bay looking out on the Castello Aragonese and the Sant'Anna rocks, where thermal springs warm the sea and the Torre di Guevara keeps watch from the meadow above the water.
- ◆ History & archaeology
Villa Arbusto (Coppa di Nestore)
Lacco Ameno
The museum villa of Lacco Ameno holds the Coppa di Nestore, an 8th-century BC vessel incised with one of the oldest Greek verses ever found.
- ◆ Nature
Giardini Ravino
Forio
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.
- 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.
- In the water & diving
Fonte delle Ninfe Nitrodi
Barano d'Ischia (NA)
A garden of springs where waters once dear to Apollo and the nymphs flow, among olive trees and open-air pools, far from the sound of the sea below.
- Nature
Spiaggia delle Fumarole
Serrara Fontana (NA)
Near Sant'Angelo the sand burns from the steam rising underground: here eggs are cooked beneath the grains and the swim becomes a thermal ritual.
- In the water & diving
Terme di Cavascura
Barano d'Ischia (NA)
In a gorge carved into the rock, pools and grottoes used since antiquity: you descend a canyon to plunge into scalding waters gushing from the mountain.
- In the water & diving
Parco Termale Negombo
Lacco Ameno (NA)
A botanical garden descending to the bay of San Montano, with thermal pools hidden among rare plants, artworks and the blue of the sea.
- Free beaches
Baia di San Montano
Lacco Ameno (NA)
A crescent sheltered from the winds, with shallow, clear water turning turquoise: Ischia's gentlest bay, cradled between two green headlands.
- Villages
Centro 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.
- ◆ Sacred art
Chiesa di Santa Maria Visitapoveri
Forio (NA)
Born as a confraternity that buried the poor and watched over the dying, Visitapoveri hides behind a sober façade the frescoes of Alfonso Di Spigna and eighteenth-century pews polished by centuries of elbows.
- Free beaches
Spiaggia della Chiaia (Forio)
Forio (NA)
The town's beach, where the people of Forio walk down from the alleys with a towel under their arm. At sunset the sun drops straight into the sea before the Torre del Soccorso.
- Free beaches
Cava dell'Isola
Forio (NA)
The only truly free beach on Ischia: no sunbeds, no rows of umbrellas, just dark sand and young people who stay in the water until eight in the evening, because here the sun dies in the sea and not behind the mountain.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Punta Caruso
Forio (NA)
A spur of black lava plunging into a sea that shifts from turquoise to ink blue within three metres of depth. No sand: you climb down from the rocks, as the islanders have always done.
- Views & panoramas
Faro di Punta Imperatore
Forio (NA)
Built in 1884, 160 metres above the sea, it is one of the tallest lighthouses on the Tyrrhenian. You climb up on foot from Via Costa, and at a certain point the island's sounds vanish: only the wind and your own breath remain.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Scoglio della Nave
Forio (NA)
A rock that, seen from the lighthouse, looks like a stone sailing ship that will never make port. For centuries the fishermen of Panza have used it as a landmark for finding their way home.
- Museums
Villa La Colombaia (Museo Luchino Visconti)
Forio (NA)
Here Luchino Visconti wrote, quarrelled and hid from the world, among the holm oaks of Zaro and a view that slips straight into his films. The director wanted to be buried here: the park is still his, more than the villa.
- ◆ Nature
Punta Cornacchia e Bosco di Zaro
Forio (NA)
It is the northernmost point of the island: a promontory of lava covered by a wood of holm oaks where Ischia ends and the channel to Procida begins.
- ◆ Sacred art
Chiesa di Santa Maria al Monte
Forio (NA)
Clinging to the mountainside at 400 metres, it is the church of the mountain farmers and the starting point of the trails to the Epomeo. From here the whole island is in view, and it looks tiny.
- ◆ In the water & diving
Chianare di Spadera
Forio (NA)
A coast of smooth flagstones and tiny coves below Punta Chiarito, where the tufo (volcanic tuff) splits into natural steps. Just above, archaeologists found a Greek farmstead buried by a landslide in the 6th century BC: the people fled and never came back.
- ◆ Museums
Museo del Mare (Palazzo dell'Orologio)
Ischia (NA)
Three floors of nets, ex voto, models and photographs of men who set out to sea and never returned. It is the museum the fishermen of Ischia Ponte built for themselves, in the clock tower palace that marked the rhythm of their departures.
- ◆ Museums
MUDIS — Museo Diocesano di Ischia
Ischia (NA)
Silverware, vestments and painted panels gathered from the island's churches after earthquakes and collapses. It is the storehouse of Ischia's sacred memory, and almost no tourist ever opens its doors.
- Views & panoramas
Scogli di Sant'Anna
Ischia (NA)
Three teeth of rock facing the Castello Aragonese. Every 26 July the sea here fills with lit-up boats and at the end the Castello burns amid the fireworks: it is the Festa di Sant'Anna, and for one night the island re-enacts its own blaze.
- Free beaches
Spiaggia dei Pescatori
Ischia (NA)
Boats hauled up on the sand between the sunshades, and the Castello Aragonese closing the horizon: it is still the working beach of the fishermen, who tolerate bathers between one net and the next.
- ◆ Free beaches
Spiaggia degli Inglesi
Ischia (NA)
A tongue of dark sand hemmed in between two headlands, reachable only on foot along a path that starts behind the harbour: almost no one gets there, and that is exactly the point.
- ◆ Nature
Grotta del Mago
Barano d'Ischia (NA)
The fishermen who took shelter here during storms swore they saw an old man with a silver beard sitting on the rocks, surrounded by three dancing women. Also called Grotta del Tempio del Sole, it was even sought by the Nazis, convinced it hid a doorway to the underworld.
- ◆ History & archaeology
Monte Vico — acropoli di Pithekoussai
Lacco Ameno (NA)
On this promontory, in the 8th century BC, the Greeks of Euboea founded the first permanent settlement of the West. From here set out the alphabet that would become Rome's, and with it everything else.
- ◆ Castles
Torre di Casa Cumana
Casamicciola Terme (NA)
A sixteenth-century tower that survived the 1883 earthquake which in seconds razed Casamicciola and killed over two thousand people. It still stands there, while the town around it has been entirely rebuilt.
- ◆ 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.
- ◆ Hiking
Il Cretaio e il Bosco della Maddalena
Casamicciola Terme (NA)
The trail of the craters: you walk among holm oaks, strawberry trees and heather, and every bend is the rim of an extinct volcano. It is the green heart of Ischia, the one you cannot see from the sea.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Montagnone
Ischia (NA)
The volcanic dome that looks straight down onto the port of Ischia, a crater in the middle of the inhabited island. From the top you see the Vesuvio ahead and Procida to the side, and under your feet there is lava.
- ◆ Nature
Pineta di Fiaiano (colata dell'Arso)
Ischia (NA)
This pinewood grows over Ischia's last eruption: in 1302 the lava of the Arso flowed all the way to the sea and wiped out everything in its path. Beneath the roots the flow is still there, black and intact.
- ◆ Hiking
Bosco della Falanga
Serrara Fontana (NA)
A chestnut wood full of houses carved inside the boulders: the farmers lived in the stone, and in a pit dug into the ground they stored the snow of the Epomeo to sell it in summer as ice. The wood is still there, the houses too, empty.
- Views & panoramas
Belvedere dei Frassitelli
Forio (NA)
A natural terrace at 600 metres above the vine terraces, with Punta Imperatore and the open sea beneath your feet. It is the balcony from which the farmers watched to see if the storm was coming.
- ◆ Nature
Pietra dell'Acqua
Serrara Fontana (NA)
A huge block of green tufo (volcanic tuff) with a basin carved into its top, which collects rainwater. No one knows for certain who cut it or why: some speak of an altar, some of a watering trough, some say nothing at all.
- ◆ Hiking
Sentiero dei Pizzi Bianchi
Serrara Fontana (NA)
A canyon of white tufo (volcanic tuff) pinnacles that look like melted candles, carved by water over thousands of years. The path drops down among them and ends, almost as a joke, facing the sea of the Maronti.
- ◆ Hiking
Piano Liguori
Barano d'Ischia (NA)
The gentlest and most beautiful path on the island: you walk between rows of vines and cellars dug into the tufo (volcanic tuff), with the sea 300 metres below and Capri on the horizon. A few families still live here, and you can only get there on foot.
- ◆ Free beaches
Scarrupata di Barano
Barano d'Ischia (NA)
The name says it all: scarrupata, meaning collapsed. A wall of coloured clays fallen into the sea, and at the bottom a beach of big pebbles that its own inaccessibility saved from concrete. For the people of Ischia it is a place of the soul.
- ◆ Views & panoramas
Belvedere di Monte Cotto
Barano d'Ischia (NA)
The terrace from which the Maronti open up in full, from the Castello to the headlands of Sant'Angelo. Sunset without the crowd, and without a ticket.