Sorrento and the Colorful Fairytale Island of Procida - Italy

Hello everyone. After the Li Galli islands we visited Sorrento, another place connected with the Sirens. The name of this place itself comes from the sirens. According to legend, the body of one of the sirens washed ashore here and the city was founded this way. Indeed the city was founded in the 6th century BCE. Those who founded it were the Greeks. The Greeks lived very close to here. During the Roman period, the city continued to develop. Especially the amazing villa of Octavian Augustus was built here. He used to spend the winter season and of course the summer season here with pleasure.

After the fall of Rome, Sorrento began to decline. Who has not captured it. Goths, Byzantines and anyone who came along. It has a great location because in front of us were 50 meter high tuff cliffs that provided protection from the sea, while from the back Sorrento was protected by mountains. But after the fall of the Roman Empire, even this could not save it. In the last century when Sorrento turned into a real resort town, its brightest era began. And do you know who used to live here in large numbers? Aristocrats who fled after the revolution. Especially the villa known as the Bourbon villa here was one of their residences. There is also an Orthodox church here.

The hotels here are of course incredibly expensive, but they have an advantage. Each hotel has its own beach complex. Staying in an ordinary hotel without a beach complex is not very pleasant. You either have to go down the stairs or go somewhere else. Or even better, renting a boat or a speedboat and going on a trip to Capri or the neighboring coves.

Here you really understand that beauty is not a luxury, but a necessity. The fishermen know this too, because in fact everything started with an ordinary fishing village.

We were very close to Naples. Neapolitans love to go to Sorrento on weekends. They reach here by boat and all kinds of ferries in literally half an hour. They work almost like public transport. There is nothing to do here by car, there is no parking. Therefore, in any case, you will have to go down to the beach either on foot or by elevator. But the distances are long, you cannot walk like this every day.

Vesuvius here is a dormant volcano. It really can wake up at any moment. As they say Memento mori (Remember that you must die). This concept was very common in Ancient Rome. They believed that it was necessary not to forget that death could come at any moment and to definitely appreciate the moments you have right now. While they filled their surroundings with depictions of skeletons and death during festive dinners or evening meals in Ancient Rome, I did not buy a skeleton remembering this, but I bought a ceramic door number for our new house. A great souvenir.

Then since my nephews were very tired, we just walked around the city a bit and went to dinner. We were so used to the boat that even sitting upright felt strange, as if the whole world around us was swaying like that. And what should we have ordered here? Mozzarella of course. Because Sorrento has the most delicious mozzarella made from buffalo milk. But that is too ordinary for us. We ordered seafood.

And of course, the symbol of Sorrento is its lemons. To be honest, I do not understand what the difference is between Sorrento lemons and Amalfi lemons.

When I accidentally entered a church at 10 pm, I noticed something. The art of intarsia was brought to Sorrento by Arabs in the 11th century and it is a true art. There was ebony wood and white linden here. Local craftsmen assemble magnificent paintings from these small pieces. The thickness of each wood piece is only 2 millimeters. They cut everything according to stencils and then combine it piece by piece like a puzzle. Really amazing work. And the people of Sorrento are very proud of it.

Then we moved towards Procida. This island is famous for being selected as the Italian Capital of Culture in 2022. Not because of its museums, but because it preserves its cultural traditions. This is a place where time flows according to the tides, not the clock. All cultural features have been preserved. It is literally an island of fishermen and prisoners.

There is also a prison here. Criminals, mafia members and Carbonari members who tried to unite Italy in the 19th century have been held here . This prison was closed only in 1988, which is very recently. Imagine there was no escape from here. They did not take anyone out for walks and people saw this magnificent view behind bars. So they sufered even more. As for us, instead of suffering, we went to enjoy these colorful houses and delicious seafood cuisine.

Procida island is very beautiful. Its name comes from the word Prochyta, which means nearest or standing in front in Greek. By the way according to legend, the Greeks founded the island. Ruins of this ancient settlement from the 7th century BC were actually found. So this island was right opposite Ischia and was like a wall closing off Ischia. In general the island remained on the defense for a long time. It repelled the attacks of Ottoman pirates, so it is considered a real fortress.

Right now its main attraction is in its romance. Sea romance, fishermen's houses. Also, garages for boats are still preserved on the ground floor of all these houses. You can tell which family lives here from the colors of the houses. Yellow houses belong to fishermen families. Pink houses belong to merchant families. Green houses belong to artisan families. And blue houses belong to sailor families.

It is not certain whether representatives of these professions still live there right now. that is how it was in the past and changing the colors of the houses has been strictly forbidden for the last 20 years.

Indeed the houses I saw resembled typical fishermen's houses. The ground floor is a garage for boats. Then there is a separate passage opening directly to the second level, which is the living floor. And on the top floors, do you know what they used to do? They used to dry fish. Nowadays of course, people live on every floor, but the architecture has been preserved.

The things in the simple glass here are real lemon granita. So it is made directly from lemon juice. Yes, Procida has lemons too. This is actually frozen ice.

We ducked into a small street, where you can directly see the traditional lifestyle of the 18th century. The children met my nephews.

The walls here were built in the 15th century to protect against Ottoman pirates. There were pirates here. This was very important because Barbarossa was capturing all the surrounding lands right in that period. A magnificent view opens up from here to the harbor and those colorful houses. This is really one of the most photographed views in Italy.

As you can understand, this island was one of the centers of Christian resistance against the attacks of Ottoman pirates. This situation continued until the Naval Battle of Lepanto in 1571, where the Ottomans were repelled. Yes, since then, the need to defend at least in the Mediterranean disappeared for a while.

And it feels as if this island is really experiencing a new renaissance period right now. There is a lot of peeling plaster, but there are also many restored houses. Usually Italian tourists wander around, I almost never came across foreign tourists.

Gozzo boats are still made here using 15th century technologies. No nails are used at all, only wooden fasteners that bind the wooden parts together as they get wet. While modern boats are said to have a lifespan of 20 years, these gozzos live for a full 70 years. There is a real village, fishing atmosphere here.

Then we turned our route towards Ischia.