From the Grand Tour to today
The Sorrentine peninsula presents itself as a large tourist area since antiquity. Roman emperors and nobility and then the Angevin and Aragonese rulers, as well as artists and poets such as Goethe, Nietzsche and Wagner, chose this area for their vacations, thus contributing to increase of the myth of a superlative beauty, which has been confirmed over the course of time.
For centuries, from every corner of Europe and even from overseas, a high number of artists, poets, and musicians visited the Peninsula and stayed during every season of the year.
The myth of the Sorrentine Peninsula already owes much to the Roman nobility that in the imperial age wanted to erect residences along this stretch of coast, between Stabile and Capo Minerva. This is witnessed by the ruins of patrician houses scatted in the most evocative places. The myth is strengthened above all in the end of the eighteenth century, during which the aristocratic of Europe were kidnapped by a passion for antiquity and classicism. They were the first modern age travelers to understand and propagate the beauty of the Sorrentine Peninsula.
Through their travel diaries and in their letters, they recounted to the rest of the world, their marvelous adventures and described the enchantment of nature that surrounded them: the immense crops of citrus and fruit, abundant in every season, the always mild climate and the delight of a cuisine based on simple dishes that seemed to them both precious and exotic.
The cultural journey in the Sorrentine Peninsula proved to be an experience destined to leave a profound mark on their lives and in their artistic work. The pages written by Goethe, Dickens, Nietzsche and others, made know to all of Europe, what was hiding in that corner of land, which up to now had been unknown.
