Trips With JamesSorrento

The Queen of Napoli’s Secret Bathing Pool

The place where she meet her lovers while ruling for 40 years.

Outside the town of Sorrento, Italy, the Gateway to the famous Amalfi Coast is a hidden natural swimming pool with a natural arch that leads out to the sea. The pool is a beautiful bluish green color. It’s a beautiful and romantic protected cove and you can understand why the Queen of Naples would come here to relax and have fun in the sun. At one time there was an old Roman temple here (I do not know which God or Goddess it was for), so it has been an important place since before the birth of Christ.

Cliffs for swimming and fishing at Cape Sorrento

It was a moderately warm but drizzly day in Sorrento where I was staying for a few days as I toured around Italy. I had already walked all over the city, eating amazing Italian food, taking a wild bus ride along the cliffs of the Amalfi coast to Positano and I needed something to do on this gray day. I was not going to stay in my hotel room just because of a little rain. I had heard of Queen Giovanna’s bathing pool, so I decided to go see it for myself.

The swimming hole of Queen Giovanna is not actually a secret today. It is quite a famous tourist attraction during the summer months along the Amalfi coast because of its wonderful views of the Bay of Naples and Mount Vesuvius, the cliffs and the swimming. This spot along the Cape of Sorrento has been a popular destination for the rich and famous since the start of the Roman Empire. The ruins of a sprawling Roman villa called – Villa Pollio Felice – dating from the 1st century BC. still stands and can be visited. You can go down into the foundations of this Roman villa and hang out if you want. Many people do as evidence from the graffiti covered walls, the empty beer cans and wine bottles, and the odor of weed that lingers in the air. The original owner of this Roman villa could have never imagined that what is basically his basement would become a party place over 2000 years later.

The area around Bagni Regina Giovanna (or translated to Queen Giovanna Baths) is an archeological site and park but in true Italian style it is not protected like an American archeological site. It is a secluded spot located off the beaten path and there is no supervision or guard on duty so you can do whatever you want here on the cliffs above the bay. You are free to wander around, swim or sunbath, fish, have a picnic or cliff dive if you want. Yet, you must be careful because the paths are very rocky, and some are in disrepair, so it is easy to slip and fall to the rocks below. A staircase leads down to the pool. It is shallow and perfect for swimming.

How To Get There –

The baths and ruins are easily reached by bus with a short walk and climb. Begin on Via Capo from Sorrento, staying on this street until you reach Traversa Punta Capo. You can reach the road by cab for about 20 euros from city center you can also hop a bus here as well. There is a store where you can buy water, sandwiches, and basic supplies very close to the bus stop. Walk a few yards along Taversa Punta Capo and off to the right you will see what looks like an old Roman road with high walls along each side. You will follow the road down towards the Bay for about 20 minutes. You should take good walking shoes and the climb back up by this road can be tiring because it is uphill all the way, so you need to be in decent shape or take your time.

You will be passing old villas and homes – some lived in and several not, but on the other side of the walls are olive and lemon groves that seem to have been farmed for centuries. The road is wide enough for a small car or truck to pass by and the road is very old. It is paved but rough walking in many places.
You will eventually come to a staircase that will take you down into the park area. The trails in this area are in rough shape and the stairs down to the pool look unsteady but they seemed safe. You will find the Villa ruins here with its sweeping views, you can sneak down into the foundations if you want. You can make your way along a path that leads to a stony beach for swimming in the bay or take another staircase down to the bathing pool. I did it in November, so it was not crowded at all, and it was cool. During the summer months it will be much warmer and much more crowded so just follow the people.

Who was The Queen of Naples?

Regina Giovanna or Joanna (1326–1382) was a legend before her time. She inherited the kingdom of Napoli from her grandfather at 17 years old during the time when it was extremely rare for a queen to be the ruler of any Kingdom. It was assumed by everyone that she would give up her authority to her husband as soon as she married. Her first marriage took place when she was seven years old, and she married her cousin from Hungary who was six years old. His name was Andrew and of course they did not consummate their marriage until she was 18. Giovanna was smart, ambitious and spent most of her life defending her right to be queen from all the medieval men who kept trying to take her throne. She was married four times, lost both of her children, and had to defend herself from the Pope, her Hungarian relatives and her own family members who were determined to take her throne. Yet in a time of male dominance and when the entire political system was turned against her, she managed to stay on her throne for over 40 years. In the end she was betrayed by one of her Hungarian relatives who invaded Napoli, laid siege to her castle, imprisoned her and finally put her to death.

Unfortunately for Giovanna she is not remembered for her determination to stay on the throne, but instead for the legends that accuse her of murder, ruthlessness, sluttiness and general bad behavior. Whoever she was and whatever she did, it is no wonder that because of all the political intrigue and drama that took place in her palace that she needed a place to get away too. That place was this secretive but beautiful protective cove which allowed her to escape the worries and cares of ruling Napoli. According to legend, the Queen spent much of her time at these baths where she and her ladies-in-waiting waded around the waters with their various lovers. Call it scandalous, or call it sexy, either way this paradise stays, and today the Queen is honored in her favorite place in Naples by thousands of visitors each year.

All Photos by James Carey

Positano, Italy: City on a Cliff

Before I start my account about Positano, I owe my subscribers a bit of an apology. I promised this story to you almost three months ago and yet here it is the first time you’ve heard from me since August. My professional life has gotten very busy recently but that’s not an excuse. I just got lazy. Between directing a show, pre-production for a film, some acting jobs and being asked to write a film for a producer here in Atlanta, I just kept saying I’ll do the Positano story tomorrow. And of course I’m just getting to it now. So please pardon me and expect a lot more articles on Trips With James in the coming weeks.

Positano is the first village that you come to as you leave Sorrento, Italy on the Naples side of the Amalfi coast. It can be reached by bus along the cliffs, or you can take ferries from Naples and Sorrento to reach it by sea. Positano is a layer cake of houses and shops and churches built on a cliff side that reaches all the way down to the Bay of Naples.

The photographs and the short film that are part of this article describe much better than I can in words how beautiful and colorful Positano is. There’s one highway that comes into Positano and connects you with the rest of the Amalfi coast, and there is one road that goes through the village all the way down to the shoreline. Yet Positano is a city of steps and stairways that lead in all directions as you walk through the village. These steps and stairways and paths lead to plazas, elegant shops, beautiful homes, small churches, large cathedrals and everywhere restaurants. Each one of these places has a magnificent view of the Bay of Naples.

I have two brief tales of things that happened to me as I entered Positano. As some of you who have read this blog before know I am scared of heights. Not ones made by nature, but ones made by man himself. I am perfectly fine standing on a cliff or mountain but flying in an airplane or riding over a high bridge scare me stupid. Taking the bus from Sorrento towards Positano, I had climbed on board and sat on right side of the coach. The Italian roads around the Amalfi coast are very narrow but the bus drivers speed around those corners and curves like it’s the Indianapolis 500. To get from Sorrento to Positano you have to cross over a mountain and come down the other side and the views are incredible, but you are literally traveling on a road that is suspended over the ocean anywhere from 500 to 1000 feet above the Bay of Naples with all the views on my side of the bus. There was literally nothing next to us. We were completely supported on this tiny narrow road by man-made construction. There had never been a road there before and there really should not be a road there now. It was breathtakingly beautiful and incredibly scary as we whipped around those corners in this 30-foot bus.

As we arrived in the village an incident that took place was right out of any classic Italian genre comedy. What took place was so cliché that you almost would not believe that it happened, but it actually did. As I stated before the highway is very narrow and in the villages people actually park on both sides of the highway in many places so there’s only enough room for one car to get through one at a time, but Italians don’t wait for anybody they just keep going. As we pulled into the village there was a small pickup truck in front of our bus traveling in the same direction and coming from the opposite way was a very large Mercedes-Benz. They both arrived at the same place at the same time and neither one of them would move out of the way for the other. What ensued was 10 minutes of Italian drivers standing in the middle of the road screaming at each other and waving their hands around in that secret language of Italian hand gestures that only they understand. Our bus driver also got involved as he got out of the bus twice and went over to the group of screaming Italian men. He proceeded to yell and scream while jumping up and down a bit and then came back to the bus. With the cars stacking up behind us on the busy coastal road, drivers from 5, 6, 7 cars away would get out come to join the loud discussion and then walk back to their cars shaking their heads. Not knowing the language, I could only guess what the argument was about. It seemed that the driver of the Mercedes-Benz, a very elegantly dressed older man, seemed concerned that his Mercedes would get scratched by the pickup truck. The driver of the truck didn’t care and that seemed to be the main concern. Finally after 10 minutes of this comedy of errors in Italian, the elegantly dressed man got back in his Mercedes and actually could drive past the pickup truck. There had been really no reason for this entire kerfuffle to take place, but it was exciting to see that the cliches that you think happen in other countries like Italian drivers screaming at each other in the middle of a road actually do take place. No one pulled a gun, no one threw a punch, no one tried to stab anybody else, there was just a lot of yelling and screaming and gesticulating about who was supposed to go first or get out of the way.

It was a bright, clear and warm November day as I took my time wandering through Positano down staircases, across plazas, entering shops and the large cathedral there as I made my way down towards the shoreline. Arriving at the shore of the Bay of Naples, I turned around and realized what an amazing feat of architecture this was. It was a layer cake of colorful houses and shops, churches and plazas that are all built on top of each other. Places where people live and work and shop and eat and live their lives. It is incredible to behold, yet you wonder who was the first person to decide that we could build an entire village on a side of a cliff?

At the bottom of the cliff, the shoreline was filled with expensive eateries and restaurants that serve fresh seafood and amazing Italian pastas and wines. After lunch, of course, it took me a bit longer to go up the staircases to the road then to come down them. I almost missed the bus back to Sorrento because while there is a bus schedule it’s a little bit flexible in an Italian way. Most of these villages don’t have a bus station there’s just a place where people gather and if you miss the bus you may be there for another hour or so before one returns.

Positano is beautiful, colorful, and certainly worth the visit.

A Day in Positano, Italy: A Short Film

A short travel log about Positano, Italy

Positano (Campanian: Pasitano) is a village and comune on the Amalfi Coast (Province of Salerno), in Campania, Italy, mainly in an enclave in the hills leading down to the coast.

A Day in Positano, Italy

TRANSPORTATION TO POSITANO:

Positano can be reached by the SS163 Amalfitana national road, or by the SP425 provincial road. The nearest airports are the Napoli-Capodichino (NAP) and the Salerno-Pontecagnano Airport (QSR) and they have shuttle buses to destinations across the Amalfi Coast, including Positano. Ferries link Positano to other towns including Capri, Naples, Salerno, and Sorrento for transportation. The Sita bus links Positano to Amalfi and Sorrento.

Next Blog will be about Positano!

Film directed and edited by James Carey. All photos are by James Carey. Sources for the information are from Wikipedia and journals of James Carey. The film and this blog are copyrighted by CareyOn,LLC 2022.

Sorrento: Gateway to the Amalfi Coast

Sorrento is an ancient town on the Bay of Naples in southern Italy that dates from the 8th century BC. Sorrento is one of two towns that serve as gateways to the Amalfi Coast. Obviously, one is Sorento on the western side and Salerno on the east. Both of these towns are relatively small. Sorrento had a population of 17,000 in 2007, but if you are traveling by car or bus they’re the only ways to get to the Amalfi Coast. The only other way would be to come in by sea on a ferry or private boat.

From the cliffs surrounding Sorrento you can see Mt. Vesuvius which exploded and buried the city of Pompeii in tons of ash and lava in 79 AD. To the north directly across the bay is Naples the largest cosmopolitan city in the area and to the West is the famous island of Capri.

Sorrento has been a famous tourist destination since the 1700’s and before. Such famous people as Lord Byron, Frederick Nietzsche, Goethe, Keats, Henrik Ibsen, and many other famous people have either lived in or visited Sorrento through the years. Pizza and Neapolitan ice cream are two of the famous food items that supposedly were created in the area. Neapolitan was the original language/dialect spoken by the inhabitants of the area.

While people have been living around the area for almost 3000 years, legend has it that Sorrento was founded by the grandson of Ulysses and Circe, both figures from Greek mythology. It is probably certain that at one time it was a Greek colony or fishing village as its harbor is beautiful and safe, and the oldest archway that leads from the beach up the cliffs towards the city above was built by the ancient Greeks. The village soon came under the control of the Romans as their empire grew and its Roman name was Surrentum.

The other legend that dominates Sorrento’s history are the Sirens, also a famous staple of Greek and Roman mythology. The Sirens were three dangerous mermaid-like creatures who took up residence near Punta Campanella and sang such beautiful songs that they enchanted the sailors on passing ships to wreck their ships on the rocks in the surrounding waters. Even the legendary Ulysses had to figure out a way to resist the deadly song of the Sirens.

As I left Lake Como in northern Italy, I traveled by train through Milano to Naples. The train ride took about 7 hours as I boarded a Eurostar high speed train. Once arriving in Naples at the main Naples train terminal, I boarded a local tram at the same station and after about 10 stops I found myself at the Sorrento train station. Sorrento has no hostels; it only has local hotels or Airbnbs. I chose a small hotel about two blocks from the train station that actually put me right in the middle of the town.

The center of Sorrento, Italy is quite compact, closed to the traffic and easy to explore on foot. Near my hotel was the Piazza Tasso, Sorrento’s main piazza, the best place to catch an expresso or drink and people watch. Piazza Tasso isn’t a particularly historic square…it dates back only about a century. It was built above the gorge which was once home to a number of mills. In the 1800’s, instead of cafés and shops, you would have seen local women hand-washing their laundry in the stream which ran from the hills behind down to the sea below. If you look down from the Piazza, you can still see the gorge known as the Valley of the Mills and, at the bottom, a number of abandoned mills which were powered by the force of the rushing water; unfortunately, the mills are closed to visitors.

The main thoroughfare off the Piazza is Corso Italia lined with fashionable shops, boutiques and the eateries and cafes where both the tourists and the locals eat. While there are some cars and Vespa’s that occasional use the walkway, it’s mostly a pedestrian walkway where at night Italian families and tourists stroll up and down looking in windows, drink espresso in the cafes, smoke cigarettes and talk to each other about family, Europeans football, the weather or Italian politics.

The town is filled with back alleys and small streets and winding walkways that lead off of the Corso Italia toward the cliffs above the Bay. Here you will pass tourist shops, art galleries, more restaurants, chapels and cathedrals. It’s very easy to get lost in this rabbit warren of small back alleyways between the main drag and the cliffs. Most of the town lies on the cliffs above the Bay. As you near the cliffs you will find a few walkways that lead down the face of the cliffs to the beach and Marina below past buildings that have been there for more than a few hundred years. It is an old town with its own history and its own culture and its own way of doing things, and it’s delightful.

One of the most famous products that Sorrento produces is limoncello, their famous liqueur made from lemon rinds, water, sugar and alcohol. The lemon groves are throughout the town itself. There were two of them directly across the street from the hotel that I checked into, and you can find them everywhere in the town where they grow their own lemons and then they’ll sell you the limoncello right there.

Lemon grove right in the town, fruit not ripe yet.

I found Sorrento to be an extremely cordial town. Maybe it’s because they’ve been dealing with tourists for over 500 years or it’s just the small-town feel. While I was traveling by myself I spent five days based in Sorrento as I traveled around the area, and I totally enjoyed my entire time there, and given the opportunity I would go back in a second.

Plus I felt it was a perfect place to explore at least most of the Amalfi Coast without having to be on the coast. You can reach almost any of the small towns along the coast by bus which can be a harrowing experience as they travel at high speeds along the cliffs high above the Bay, making you feel sometimes like there is literally nothing underneath you. Or you come in by ferry or hydrofoil from either Sorento or Salerno. Each one of the separate villages along the Amalfi Coast have their own different feel and thing for which they are famous. You can find books and articles and travel blogs about what each one of those towns specialize in whether it’s their beach, food or their party or family atmosphere.

If you’re looking for a slightly larger town then most of those small villages along the coast that has plenty of places to eat and a lot of things to do not only for kids but also adults, Sorrento is perfect place.