Campania - Conca dei Marini

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Visit & See

Conca dei Marini, one of the beauties of the Amalfi Coast is set just between Positano and Amalfi, and not far from Sorrento and Capri. With it's small white houses spaced out between the "Fichi d'India" plants and the olive trees it seems to be a place where sea and sky mix their colours becoming a single thing. The never ending sky that only the candid Church of San Michele, separates from the emerald sea is a great natural frame for such a beautiful sight that one would like to capture and take back home with them. Via Roma, in an unreal silence and a dreamlike peace only broken by the chirping of the crickets offers such a magnificent panorama that opens on to the gulf.

This town hosts among the numerous hystorical buildings and just underneath the Cathedral of San Pancrazio a most beautiful sea cavern, the Emerald Grotto. It's amazing colour that always creates the most perfect atmosphere, almost seems a painting by the finest artist. It's an Emerald Temple rich with columns, stalactites and under the water a crib in ceramics of Vietri, that divers come to homage every year in the middle of December.

The seaside village, the most exclusive par of the district, was chosen in an era not too far from most important VIPS as setting for their seaside villas. Here in fact were the exclusive residences of Agnelli, Moet & Chandon, in front of the promontory called Capo di Vettica, you'll find Villa Ponti of Carlo, a guard tower renamed by Sofia Loren, Ruffo and D'Urso. Here many artists, writers and producers of fame came to swim and sunbathe... The old fishermen still also talk about Jackie Kennedy and the Princess of Holland staying here.

This location, where emerald is brilliant and green gives away to blue that turns to cobalt...with the only white sandy beach on the coast, and the only real mutable limestone rock, seems an angle of the mythical Greece.

Visit & See

Conca dei Marini has many natural beauties that one should never miss to see at least ones in a lifetime, like the Emerald Sea Grotto and the wonderful panorama from Via Roma. Torre Bianca, that rides the promontory (Capo di Conca), jutting into the deep water of an unreal cobalt blue: one of the deepest points of the high Tyrrhenian that is a habitual route of cetaceans like the imposing whales. The Torre Bianca tower was built in 1563 by the Vicerè of Naples, Don Pedro de Toledo, it was supposed to house the Museum of the sea and the maritime arts. In the past the bastion was used to contain the corpses of the people of Conca who where piled up and not buried, however it was statistically proven that they were the people that lived the longest life in the whole district, many think thanks to the fresh air.

This town also hosts many architectural and hystorical buildings like the Dominican Convent of S.Rosa, that dominates the entrance to the town and almost seems anchored to the rock, completely suspended in space on the high peak that precipitates to the sea and the maritime village below. This convent was built by a nun, Suor Maria Pandolfi, in the XVIII century.

Another sacred building that was entrusted to the same nun in ruins and in need of rebuilding some time before in 1679, was the small Church of S. Maria de lo Grado, dating back to the XI century. The restoration and the mission were commendable , but the most famous undertaking of the pious nuns was in the kitchen with the Sfogliatelle (a custard tart) in the Church the head of S.Barnabus.

Another great building not to miss is the Church of St. Antonio, with a stupendous majolica bell-tower. In the sacristy, a majolica pavement of the XVIII century, and a Roman basin for holy water.

The little Church of S. Maria delle Nevi, a female Saint in honour of whom the inhabitants have a town feast in August, taking her statue to Amalfi escorted by a long procession of boats of all shapes and sizes.

Surrounded by olives, stands the important Cathedral of S.Pancrazio. On record since 1362, but completely renovated in recent times, the surrounding gardens are magnificent, to be enjoyed at their best in Summer at sunset when the vermilion flowers of the Magnolia become one with spectacular hues from the nearby Belvedere: a wind onto the Amalfi coast. The coast here is at its most wild, Positano, Li Galli , and if the weather is clear, the Faraglioni of Capri; after the Cathedral of Amalfi, the Cathedral of S. Pancrazio is the most popular place on the coast for marriage ceremonies.