North and South of Naples Italy

Royal and Cultural Capitals Archeology Parks and Museums Caves and Volcanoes

Campania the ancient Romans called this region of Italy Campania Felix. Baia, Puteoli, Pompeii, Stabia and Capri were their favorite destinations. Then and now, Happy Campania is famed for its ancient ruins, coastal resorts and world renowned culinary traditions. A cultural and national capital for much of its nearly three thousand year history, Naples is home to art museums, the San Carlo opera house and a spectacular bay framed by Mt. Vesuvius, affectionately and fearfully referred to by the local inhabitants as The Monster.

Royal and Cultural Capitals

Caserta is best known for its 18^th century royal palace and gardens and the medieval borgo of Caserta Vecchia. Equally and historically important are the San Leucio silk works, a Unesco site,  and the Living Silk Museum with its original looms and machinery showing all the phases of silk productions.
 

Naples is best defined by the stratification of the various periods in the city’s history that can be viewed in the historic center, the oldest continuously inhabited urban community in the Western World. It corresponds to the ancient city founded by the Athenians around 450 B.C. as Neapolis, through Roman and Medieval times. It includes over 250 churches, palazzi from the 13^th through the 20^th century and countless art treasures.

Your exploration starts from the Forum, then under the Gothic Church of San Lorenzo Maggiore to view the ruins of the Roman streets and the Macellum, the food market. Then on to San Gregorio Armeno, where the world famous Neapolitan Crib art are made, and the Cappella Sansevero and the sculpture of the Veiled Christ. A few square miles with three castles, a royal palace, world class museums, the world’s second oldest university and bank. Also, an underground city with ancient aqueducts, caves, catacombs, myths, legends and a modern subway system whose stations are covered with art.
 

Salerno is renowned for its medieval historic center and the world’s first medical school. Under the rule of the Sanseverino family, it became a center of learning, culture and the arts. The city was also briefly the capital of Italy in 1943, following the Allied invasion of southern Italy.  Benevento occupies the site of the ancient Maleventum, the site of bad events, and a major defeat by the Roman army. It was supposedly founded by Diomedes after the Trojan War. Santa Sofia Church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, part of a group of seven historic buildings dating from the Longobard era – 558 to 774 ad. The historic center is an open air museum.

Experiential Tourism in Naples Italy with the Traveler as Protagonist

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o   rooted in the territory; it can happen only here, and

o   with uniquely local events, including food and wine tastings

o   specifically modified and tailored to your preferences  

memorable unique and unrepeatable!

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Archeological Parks and Museums

South of Naples the road and railway along the slopes of Mount Vesuvius that connects Naples with the Sorrento Peninsula and the Amalfi Coast is known as the Golden Mile and is replete with archeological parks and museums. Pompeii’s excavations, begun in the 18^th century, are still being carried out today. Strolling through some of the ancient streets, you can see baths, forums and villas built by the prosperous Romans in what was the empire’s second most important city. 

Poppea’s imperial villa in Oplonti features magnificent wall decorations and Stabia was home to luxury villas. The Boscoreale Museum is dedicated to Roman era daily life, including the excavation of a suburban factory. Also, the MAV - virtual archeological museum – with 3D videos of the Vesuvius eruption.
 

North of Naples the bays of Miseno, Baia and Pozzuoli were the home port of the Roman Navy, Baia’s Imperial Palace featured baths with waters of volcanic origin and the Flaegrean Fields Archeological Musem includes finds from Baia’s submerged city. In Pozzuoli, the Temple of Serapide, is famous for the cyclical sinking of its grounds and the Flavian Amphitheater was the third largest arena of the empire.

In Naples, the Botanical Gardens feature Living Roman Plants and seeds to bring back Pompeii’s plants. Charles of Bourbon put the largest art collection in Italy, the Farnese collection inherited by his mother Elisabeth, into the National Archeological Museum. Over the years, the largest archaeological collection of all time, relics from Pompeii and the villas buried under the ashes of Vesuvius in 79 BC, were brought here, including mosaics, paintings and jewelry.
 

The Cilento Coast is littered with hilltop medieval villages, olive groves and spectacular beaches. Paestum’s Museum and Archeological Park is a Unesco site and the heart of Magna Grecia. Further south, Velia and its famed pink door.

Caves and Volcanoes

Vesuvius itineraries feature a walking tour of the volcano’s crater, with a spectacular bird’s eye view of Naples bay, with a focus on the volcano’s last eruption in 1944 and night tours with electric torches. Choose between the Valley of Hell trail or a shorter and easier lava trail.
Solfatara is located in a park near Pozzuoli and features boiling mud lakes and fumarole.
Pertosa Grottoes a fascinating cave complex; you enter the grottoes with a boat.
Castelcivita Grottoes a surreal and geogolically active underground excursion.
Amalfi Windmill Valley the medieval maritime superpower’s paper mills powered by windmills.

Science

Solfatara Geo Lab interactive, multimedia geophysics and volcanology labs with the following programs: Vesuvius eruptions; shake like a leaf; yesterday, today and tomorrow; Flegrean Fields; a super volcano at Naples’ doorstep.
Portici Botanic Lab a unique educational workshop in the Portici Royal Palace; small plants kits are issued to children to transform their schools’ window sills and flower beds into mini botanic gardens.
 

Castelcivita Speleo Lab workshop and tour of Caving equipment and techniques, Carsius caves characteristics and Castlecivita Neanderthal.
Vesuvius Minerological Lab workshop, walking tour and souvenir mineral kit.
ENEA Research Center solar energy and environmental technology applications at Italy’s energy and Environment Institute.
Eolic Park San Marco dei Cavoti historic center tour and visit to one of Italy’s most important wind energy parks.

Food Traditions

Educational Workshops carried out by local small businesses specializing in the culinary traditions of Campania region includes: warm bread covered with hazelnut cream, mozzarella, black pig salame and cheese filled panini and panuozzo. The workshops follow five themes: the five senses of food; food chemistry and fraud; Campania and international recipes; insects and bio-agriculture; digesting food; fruits and vegetables.

Making Pasta in Gragnano, a town nestled between Pompeii and the Sorrento peninsula, it’s an ancient art form that involves history, culture, patience, secrets and traditions. The town’s main street was laid out to capture the mountain breeze mixed with sea air back when pasta makers hung spaghetti on drying rods. Today, it is dried with heaters at 122F for two days.

Making Pizza in a workshop by the slopes of the Vesuvius; practical and food tasting experience.

Theatre and the Divine Comedy

Hell Dante’s Inferno portrayed in the Castelcivita Caves; an underground itinerary filled with music, lights, multimedia reconstructions and 30 actors that bring alive Italy’s literary masterpiece.
Purgatory the journey continues in the gardens of the Padula Chartreuse where you meet Catone Uticense, Purgatory’s keeper.
 

Paradise the performance concludes in the enchanting settings of Salerno’s Arechi Castle and the Amalfi Coast, guided by Dante in person!

Dante in the Marche Region: Poetry Food Wine and Eroticism

Dante Alighieri was a statesman, poet and father of the modern Italian language. May 29^th2015 was the 750^th anniversary of his birth in Florence. As a literary figure, Dante is placed alongside Homer and Shakespeare, creators of larger than life characters.

The Divine Comedy, his defining work, is, among other things, a first for the Italian language and a representation of the spiritual, personal and political circumstances of his time. The latter led Dante into exile from Florence, including in Marche, where he provided profound inspiration to the local culture.

Urbino is remembered by Dante in the 27^th canto of the Inferno in a dialogue with Guido of Montefeltro, the local lord. Fiorenzuola di Focara owes its notoriety for having hosted Dante Alighieri in a baker's house where the poet experienced the emotion of strong wind gusts lashing the promontory on which stands a castle by the sea creating the most incredible and dangerous currents.

The Gradara Castle and rocks live in the hearts of lovers all over the world; here, the love story between Paolo de Malatesta and Francesca da Polenta - better known as Francesca da Rimini – blossomed, came to a tragic end and was eternalized by Dante in the V canto of the Inferno. You can view the altarpiece by Giovanni Santi, father of Raffaello Sanzio - Raphael.  

Pesaro is not directly cited however it maintains strong connotations to Dante because Gianciotto de’ Malatesti, nicknamed the Cripple, was mayor of this seaside town and is buried here. Dante consigned him to Hell.

Fonte Avellana Dante spent much of his life in the footsteps of Pier Damiani, to whom he dedicated the 21^st canto of Paradise in the Divine Comedy. He also visited Mount Catria in search of a peace and tranquility denied him in his native Florence.

Dante and the Gastronomical Traditions of Marche

There is a rich presence of food in the Divine Comedy and his other works, including lentil soup laced with wine, figs, apples, honey and vin santo; in all, 14 courses are cited in the Convivio. Also well-known are the cantos dedicated to the gluttons in both Hell and Purgatory that accompany his constant hunger; he even coined the neologism scuffare - to eat avidly and noisily. There is a rapport between diet and eroticism: the gluttons come right after the lustful in Inferno’s 6^th canto and, in Purgatory, those that fall to temptations of the senses are presented in the last of the seven frames.

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Some Dishes inspired by Dante

Tartare of Madonna Bellaccoglienza these are the classic waffles from Abruzzo wrapped with aged cheese, making them into cannoli. Madonna Bellaccoglienza is the sensual protagonist of the novel in verse The Flower which Dante wrote translating from the French Roman de la rose.

Glauco Omelette a cheese omelette, served hot and in wedges, with algae or herbs that make it gently magical. Glauco, the legendary fisherman of Boeotia, places his catch on a bed of herbs, then sees them take heart and jump back into the sea. He ate the algae, turned into a fish and became a marine deity.

Suppa alla Beatrice a barley soup of barley with tricolor vegetables sprinkled with grated aged cheese.
Beatrice, dressed in white, red and green, announces that God’s righteousness is not afraid soup, referring to the curious Florentine custom of forgiving even the most serious crimes if the perpetrator could eat a soup dish at least 7 times at the crime’s site without getting arrested. ("Paradise" 33^rd).

Mense alla Virgilio the Piadina of Romagna. Virgil, acting as a guide to Dante in the Divine Comedy,

tells him from the Aeneid that the Trojans acquired the custom of eating piadine with their food during

a stopover in Africa; a culinary tradition they introduce in Rome and later in Romagna (Inferno 1^st).

Salse alla Ciacco a spicy Bolognese mustard. Ciacco is a Florentine character know for the

prodigious appetite, and placed among the gluttons in Hell by Dante. The colors of the sauce – white,

red and green – symbolize the Christian Faith, Hope and Charity.

Anguille alla Vernaccia the famous eels from Bolsena and Cornacchio are marinated in Sardinian or

Ligurian vernaccia and roasted over olive wood coals. For Dante, a condemnation of Pope Martino

IV to Purgatory (24^th) who spent more time on food and less as St Peter’s Vicar.

Honey and Fossa Cheese from Monte Diana a classic accompaniment and an aphrodisiac which in

theological terms unite knowledge (milk) and justice (honey). The reference to Diana – goddess

of the moon and of night – is the ancient etymology of Mondaino, a town now famous for its fossa

cheese (Paradise 18^th).

Torta di Frutti Misti a pie made of apples, pears, figs and plums, present in all religions.

Vini dei Colli di Romagna famous area wines – sangiovese, albana, rebola, vini di sabbia.

Acqua Lete available commercially today. When Dante reached Earthly Paradise, he was

immersed by a beautiful woman named Matelda in the Lete River, so named because capable of

removing one’s sins – a baptism. Emerging from these waters, one could continue the journey to

Celestial Paradise (Purgatory 28^th).