The wood-mosaic doors
Thousands of inlaid pieces — the craft displayed as devotion.
Mentnafunangann — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Berthold Werner — CC BY-SA 3.0 · MentNFG — CC BY-SA 4.0 · MentNFG — CC BY-SA 4.0
Sorrento's cathedral on its main street is the house of the craft that made the town famous for centuries: intarsia — wood inlaid into pictures from thousands of tinted pieces — reaches its spiritual summit here: the church doors, choir stalls and stations of the cross are all wooden mosaic from Sorrento's master hands, the building the town's showcase of its craft before being its cathedral. The structure wears the Mediterranean's usual layers — Romanesque origin, Baroque dress, modern front — and its bell tower stands on a Roman base of reused columns, crowned by the coloured majolica clock that marks Corso Italia. Twenty minutes between lane-wanderings suffice — and they are the quietest of central Sorrento's crowded summer moments.
Thousands of inlaid pieces — the craft displayed as devotion.
A base recycled from ancient Surrentum.
Corso Italia, 80067 Sorrento
Cloister of San FrancescoA fourteenth-century cloister in central Sorrento, among the loveliest small cou4 minutes walk4.5
Valley of the MillsA minute's walk from Piazza Tasso the pavement stops at an iron railing and the 4 minutes walk4.4
Piazza TassoThe coffee tables of Piazza Tasso stand on a buried ravine. When Sorrento laid o4 minutes walk4.4
Santuario della Madonna del CarmineA church on Piazza Tasso, the main square of Sorrento, in the very centre of the5 minutes walk4.6
Museo Correale di TerranovaThe Correale is "Italy's most beautiful provincial museum" by its old and earned10 minutes walk4.5Fine wood inlay flourishing here since the Renaissance in local olive, lemon and walnut — boxes, tables and pictures the town exported to Europe. The nearby MUTA museum (the historic intarsia house) shows its masterpieces for the curious — and genuine buying happens in workshops, not the tourist shipping shops.
Cathedral, centre lanes to Via San Cesareo, the Villa Comunale terrace over bay and Vesuvius, then the descent to fishermen's Marina Grande for lunch — two hours telling the town before or after the coast trips.