Villa La Colombaia (Museo Luchino Visconti)
Forio (NA)
KnownMuseums
The story
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.
Access
€ ~5 (~7 in the evening slot). Variable hours: check before going
More gems in Forio
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.
- Nature & hiking
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.
Nature & hikingGiardini 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 & diving
Parco 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.
- Museums
Il 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.
More gems: Museums
- Museums
Ospedale delle Bambole
Napoli
Behind a shop window in Palazzo Marigliano a craftsman mends glass eyes, porcelain arms and dolls' curls, in a workshop born more than a century ago.
MuseumsVilla San Michele (Axel Munthe)
Anacapri
The white house that Swedish doctor Axel Munthe built among ancient columns and pergolas, with its granite sphinx gazing out over the Gulf of Naples.
- Museums
Museo MEdA
(AV)
Room after room it rebuilds the peasant world of the Alta Irpinia: trades, objects and rites of a vanished civilisation, where daily life was interwoven with magic and superstition.
- 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.
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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.
- Museums
Museo Civico di Procida "Sebastiano Tusa"
Procida (NA)
Named after the underwater archaeologist who died in the 2019 Ethiopian air disaster, it gathers what the sea around Procida has given back. It stands in the same complex from which, for two centuries, people looked out at the prison.