Amalfi Coast and Ischia: Cultural Tour

To understand the mentality of the inhabitants of each region and even a small town in Italy, it is worth tracing its history through local traditions and culture. Like folk tales, sometimes it keeps much more than history books. Let's discover one of the most impportant traditional holidy in Ischia.

During a trip to the Campania region, one of the best places to visit is undoubtedly Ischia. You can take a boat to the island from the port of Naples or from the Amalfi coast. If you plan to travel at the end of July, you will be able to get to one of the most important traditional summer local holidays – the feast of St. Anna in Ischia. This holiday parade festival attracts tourists and locals with its authenticity and beauty. It is held on the seashore right in front of the cliffs of Ischia Ponte, which was once called the village of Celsa, in the landscape of the Gulf of Cartaromana with a parade of allegorical boats, an imitation of the fire of the Aragonese castle and with an unusual fireworks show, which can also be seen from the neighboring the islands of Procida and from the farthest island of Capri.

Thousands of tourists and islanders sit on the cliffs of the Aragonese marina or on boats where nature mixes with history. The Gulf of Cartaromana is a reservoir where, over time, local residents transferred the entire cycle of their lives into ritual signs: birth, with the procession of women in labor to St. Anna's church, dinners at sea on summer evenings and again farewell to life with the funerals at sea. This whole cycle and the history of the island are shown in the decorations of allegorical boats, developing over the years. To recreate history through this theatrical performance, many artists, writers and art historians participate in the decoration of boats.

The fireworks show takes place in the ”sky" of the sunken city, the ancient Roman port of Enaria, which was discovered thanks to recent archaeological excavations. The feast of Saint Anne restores and enhances the texture of the spatial and symbolic relations of these places: the connection between the tower of Saint Anne, better known as the Michelangelo Tower, and the Aragonese Castle, as opposed to a Renaissance villa to a highly urbanized settlement on the island of Insula Minor (the ancient name of the island of Ischia), the relationship between Soronzano Hill and the Aragonese Castle as between reliefs that facing each other, the strongly symbolic otherness of St. Anne's Church and cemetery compared to the village of Cartaromana.