Scogli di Sant'Anna
Ischia (NA)
KnownViews & panoramas
The story
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.
Access
Visible for free from Baia di Cartaromana. Reached by swimming or by boat
How to get there
- Hydrofoil
- Ferry
Hours and prices
Free entry.
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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.
◆ 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.
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.
- 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.
- ◆ Museums
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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.
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A seventeenth-century fountain by Pietro Bernini and Naccherino, moved again and again before settling on the seafront: marble and tritons facing the water, in the shadow of Castel dell'Ovo.
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Mirrors, stucco and Belle Époque velvet: at the counter you order an espresso and, by old Neapolitan custom, you leave a second one paid for whoever comes next.
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The elliptical staircase climbs in a perfect spiral of steps and Liberty-style railings: lean over from the top and the eye falls into a vortex of stone.
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Monte di Dio
The ramps drop in hairpins from Monte di Dio, between old walls and sudden glimpses of the sea: a slow shortcut worth taking for the view alone.
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Lungomare
via Partenope
A seafront walk from via Partenope: Vesuvius straight ahead, Castel dell'Ovo out on the water, and all of Naples strolling slowly through the evening between a gelato and the horizon.