Making Irpinia, home
You can't have the Amalfi Coast without the Campania behind it
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If one searches for the highlights to visit in Campania, Italy, you’ll note a running similarity: they’re essentially all on the coast. Naples, Sorrento, and Pompeii are cities and sites which always pop up and are definitely worth a visit. I’d even posit that Naples, either in spite of or due to its innate chaos, is one of the few places in Italy that I still truly love.
Continuing down one’s listicle of choice will arrive to Vesuvius and the islands of Ischia and Capri for natural wonders that one ‘must’ visit. And of course, there’s always Positano and the Amalfi Coast…
After seeing endless glam shots on The Socials, I finally visited this region. While very pretty from above, once you’re done jostling for a view amongst the influencer set and you actually enter the villages, everything is overpriced and without a level of quality to match. Crowded amongst all these shops with white clothing with blue patterns, are tourists crammed shoulder to shoulder, complaining about how everything is overpriced. Needless to say, a brief stop in Sorrento, while still holding its fair share of tourists, was far more pleasant.
Once you peel back the all that lemon-themed pith from the coast, few lists will talk about much else. This is truly a pity as there’s very little in Italy that isn’t nice and the interior region of Campania is often overlooked for some reason. I don’t understand how as it checks off any Italy visit list with rolling hills, old villages, and most importantly, wine, especially in the province of Avellino, also known as Irpinia.
I hadn’t managed to visit Campania until last fall and it wasn’t the best of visits given that it was absolutely horrid weather and very, very cold. Despite this I did get in contact with Milena Pepe of Tenuta Cavalier Pepe to arrange another visit in the spring under what I could only hope were better meteorological conditions.