Surroundings:

The Marina Piccola (Small Marina, so named in order to distinguish it from the other one, which is larger and called Marina Grande) is the place where is the harbour of Sorrento and where land the ferries and hydrofoils coming from other localities in the Gulf of Naples. The construction of the port began in 1912, but the Marina Piccola was even before the landing point preferred by incoming visitors, because it was closer to the centre of Sorrento. Then it was named Marina di Capo Cervo, from the name of the small promontory which overhang it.

The main characteristic of Sorrento is to be not a maritime city, even if it is on the sea: the high coast falls steeply over the sea without a shore (keeping far from the sea and encouraging the contacts inland) and it is interrupted only in few points by narrow and deep ravines, worn by water running from the Monti Lattari. The oldest nucleus of Sorrento was erected on that tract of the coast isolated between two connected ravines, which worked as surrounding moat for defence. On the outlets of ravines to the sea, they rose the two marinas of Sorrento, detached from the town and not protected.

The Marina Piccola is located on the mouth of Vallone dei Mulini (Mills'
Ravine) , which bordered the town of Sorrento on the east. Where it was the main gate to the city (Porta Maggiore), the ravine was crossed by a bridge joining Sorrento to the rest of the flat country outside city walls. The Marina Piccola could be reached by another gate, under the Basilica of Sant'Antonino, on top of an steep stairway nowadays interrupted by the car road.

When the harbour was built, the old and poor fishermen houses on the seashore, in a typical mediterranean style with the climbing staircases and vaulted rooftops to collect the rain water, were replaced with multistoried houses in modern style because they wanted to show tourist and travellers a more respectable aspect, less popular. It was the time of "risanamenti"
(slums clearance) when the new Italian Government thought to recover and advance the impoverished areas by means of radical intervention.

Nowadays Marina Piccola is an important shunting station: more than the third part of all international tourists travelling in the gulf of Naples pass on this harbour. Besides the natural and artistic beauties of the city and its surroundings, Sorrento has been able to propose itself as the center of a larger touristic area, giving hospitality also to those want to visit the near localities of Capri, Pompeii and Positano with daily excursions. In order to satisfy the upcoming needs, it has been built an other terminal for hydrofoils outside the harbour.
Near the harbour of Marina Piccola there are the bathing establishments of Sorrento. Initially they were private beaches for clients of the hotels (built right on the edge of the overhanging cliff, replacing the noble villas provided with private stairways to the beach below), but after they opened to other vacationers too. Since the sand beach is very small and was not able to receive many bathers, the establishments extend towards the sea supported with piles, in such a characteristic way. Because of their exposure to the north (and since they are over the water), here the summer sultriness is less heavy and easier to bear.

From this side of the Marina Piccola, a ramp carved into the tufa cliff leads to the upper terrace of Villa Comunale (Public Gardens), one of the few points of Sorrento coast which is free to visit (the other ones are in private properties, villas and hotels), with an amazing view over the Gulf of Naples. These gardens were once the vineyards of the near Convent of San Francesco (St. Francis).

The origins of Sorrento are not known clearly. According to the legend, it was founded by Liparus the son of Ausone, which was son of Odysseus and Circe, and the first exponent of the Italic descent of Ausoni. So Sorrento should have been initially an Italic city, as alsotold by the ancient historian Strabo. But the structure of the old centre of Sorrento and some archaeological remains make us think it was a Greek city or at least it was heavily influenced by the Greeks. This is confirmed also by the presence on Punta Campanella (the extreme point of the peninsula) by a temple dedicated to Athena.
The old centre of Sorrento shows the usual Greek and Roman plan, with parallel streets around the main axes (decumanus and cardo maximus) of Via San Cesareo and Via Tasso, running straightly to the cardinal points. It partially keeps the original plan, nowadays occupied mainly by souvenir shops and tourist services, and partially has been cleared by the construction of the main road of Corso Italia, done at the end of the 19th century and which crosses Sorrento from point to point.

Between Corso Italia and Via San Cesareo there are some of the most representative buildings in the history of Sorrento. The Cathedral, seat for the Archbishop of Sorrento, was restructured several times but it saved an interesting Aragonese portal of the 15th century. Nearby there is the campanile (a dislocated bell tower), with a medieval structure but decorated in the 18th century. On the decuman there is the Sedile Dominova, the only example of the medieval parliaments by noblemen (introduced by the
Angevins) which has remained in the whole gulf of Naples, called either Seggi or Sedili (Seats).
Piazza Tasso on the Corso Italia is the unavoidable crossroads to reach every place in Sorrento. But the administrative and religious centre of Sorrento is Piazza Sant'Antonino: on the opposite sides of this square there are the Town Hall, housed inside the Old Orphanage by the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Our Lady of Graces), and the Basilica of

Sant'Antonino: in the crypt it is kept the reliquary of Sant'Antonino Abate, the patron saint of the city, portrayed also by the statue in the middle of the square.
Not far from Piazza Sant'Antonino, there are the Church and the Convent of San Francesco, with the characteristic cloister nowadays used as scenery for concerts of classical music during the summer season. The cloister, with a rectangular plan, has columns and their capitals carved in tufa rocks and which form slender double lancet arches in Gothic Moresque. Its style is not uniform because of several restoration works done in different times, but it is very suggestive.

In the vineyards behind the convent, on the edge of the cliffs, they made the Villa Comunale (Public Gardens) at the end of the 19th century, with a wonderful view over the bay in front of Sorrento. It is a small but graceful open space, pleasantly shady by the trees and with flowerbeds where they put some marble busts. The adjacent rooms of the convent nowadays house the local School of Arts, who continues the prestigious tradition of the inlaid wood works done by the craftsmen of Sorrento.

Many other churches and convents, villas and palaces are in the centre of Sorrento, but unfortunately they are not all visitable. Among them we remember: the home of the poet Torquato Tasso and the one by his sister Cornelia; the palaces Veniero, Correale and Galantario; the churches of San Paolo, Ss. Annunziata, Madonna del Carmine, Maria's Servants, of the Addolorata. Finally we have to mention the museum Correale di Terranova, where are shown the highest examples of arts and crafts in Sorrento: inlaid wood work, embroidery, silks, furnishings.

The Marina Grande (Large Marina), which was the only seafaring village in Sorrento until the 15th century, is located on the mouth of the ravine closing on the west the old city and crossed on top by the bridge of Parsano, from where it started the Via Minerva (Athena's Road) leading to the sanctuary of Athena on the Punta Campanella. Marina Grande is separated from the centre of Sorrento by the promontory which housed the Roman villa of Agrippa Postumus, nephew of the emperor Octavian Augustus.

Even now we enter the Marina Grande (if we follow the pedestrian path) through the ancient gate, built with large blocks of limestone. For its construction typology (even if it was renovated many times) we estimate it belongs to the 3rd century before Christ. From here entered the Saracen pirates who ravaged Sorrento in 1558, because of the betrayal of a slave who, as told by the tradition, in the middle of the night secretly opened the gate, otherwise impregnable.

The Marina Grande of Sorrento has been touched only partially by the touristic development which has instead changed radically the Marina Piccola. It has better saved its peculiarity of seafaring suburb, thanks to the character of its inhabitants, who have always formed a community much united and tenaciously attached to their family values and to their working and religious traditions. Here the beach is felt and experienced as a collective space (as in the past) for the work and the free time of the whole community, as demonstrated by the presence on the sand of the fishing nets, the equipments and the beached boats.

On this beach, as a shipyard in the open air, they were built the famous "gozzi sorrentini", typical boats from this area, with a single lateen sail, long from 6 to 12 meters, manageable and reliable, practically unsinkable. The mastery of the craftsmen was so renown that those boats were adopted by fishermen and sailors from all over the gulf and from the islands, who came to Sorrento to order their boats. Heirs of this tradition are the motor boats (Gozzi) built nowadays in Sorrento and in the surroundings.

In the middle of the Marina there is the church of Sant'Anna, the patroness of the village, who is celebrated on the first Sunday after the 26th of July, which is the day dedicated to this Saint. For this occasion the village is adorned with illuminations, the bay is populated by boats and they present a show of fireworks. This festivity is the Christian heir of a pagan popular feast, with fires on the water and banquets, when the boats came here taking the typical products from the surroundings. The feast ended with music and dances on the beach all night long.

Nowadays the seashore of the Marina Grande, besides the houses and the boats of fishermen, sees the presence of some restaurants and bathing establishments, which however do not alter its aspect but become part of the environment, without modifying its original character of seafaring village. Even if the Marina Grande is now joined to the centre of Sorrento also by an asphalted road, the city is farther than it seems and this community continues to live following its own rhythm and its priorities.