It seems like traveling to a different universe, when a 40-minute hydrofoil ride takes me to Ischia, away from the tense Neapolitan scenes where all the locals approached when asking for directions to Molo Beverello, tell me to be careful with my belongings. Ischia is the closest place I envision paradise to be like, and I am still stating it after my fourth visit to this island.
Ischia is a volcanic island about 30 km from Naples. Hydrotherapy, blessed by is one of the many lures the island offers Among the others: scent of flowers and lemon trees, several hundreds feet cliffs diving in the crystal clear mar Tirreno. Ischia witnessed several thousand years of history: it was inhabited since the Bronze age, as from the Mycenaean pottery findings. Ancient Greeks, Etruscan and Romans followed. Homer and Virgil wrote about Ischia, although was called with different names: Aenaria, Arima, Inarima and Pithecusa.
I would not go in summer as I don't enjoy crowd and noise immersion ---my taste many others do, otherwise the island woul not be noisy and overcrowded in summer. My other visits were in spring, this is my first staying in Ischia in the approaching winter season, in the hope to still enjoy outdoor swimming in the outdoor thermal water pools. The weather in Italy this year is extremely warm (almost 20 degrees Celsius) yet walking to Spiaggia della Citara is not encouraging for a dive in the sea. But the sunlight shining on the ocean is magical and the views breathtaking, my hotel welcoming and beautiful... R&R has finally begun!
Excerpts from the conceptual multimedia project
“Axes Mundi: Perceptions and Understanding of Places as Intersections of Space, Time and Culture"