Italy - The Sorrento Peninsula

We begin our holiday with a flight to Naples, just an hour’s drive from Sorrento where we will be based throughout this holiday in a comfortable hotel offering spectacular views over the Bay of Naples. Sorrento is an attractive mix of ancient cathedral city, working town, port and busy resort. As a centre for communications it is well placed to provide the various means of transport that will assist us on our explorations. Here many will have their first view of the distinctive local Italian Sparrow, whilst the monotonous but cheerful jingling song of Serins can be heard everywhere. We will begin our programme of walks on the coast, enjoying woodlands carpeted with Cyclamen repandum, and open clifftop grasslands bedecked with Cistus species, the colourful Tree Spurge, broomrapes and orchids, of which Orchis italica is the most common and widespread. This is the typical habitat of Sardinian and Subalpine Warblers, Tawny Pipit, Blue Rock Thrush and the ubiquitous Fan-tailed Warbler. Here, as on all our walks, there are beautiful views along the coast and across to the mountains. Photographers will be in their element!

A short boat journey, during which we will look out for Cory’s and Mediterranean Shearwaters, takes us to the island of Capri. Here we will walk to the highest point, where Peregrine Falcons breed on the steep cliffs and passing migrants are sometimes numerous. Amongst the latter we should see Alpine, Pallid and Common Swifts, Bee-eaters, Hoopoes, Wheatears, and a variety of shrikes and warblers. Once again we should find a good variety of orchids, including the local form of the Late Spider Orchid (Ophrys fuciflora ssp. oxyrrhynchos).

Vesuvius (1,277 metres high) has an interesting flora that illustrates well the colonisation of lava flows. The endemic lichen Stereocaulon vesuvianum and Mount Etna Broom (Genista aetnensis) are particularly noteworthy. A car park near the top makes exploration easy, and the walk to the summit is made well worthwhile by the fine views, the Rock Thrushes that inhabit the crater, and the birds of prey overhead. At the foot of the mountain lie the excavated ruins of the Roman city of Pompeii. These show the incredible destructive power of Vesuvius, which engulfed not only Pompeii but also the nearby town of Herculaneum. If you have previously seen no more than our humble selection of Roman ruins in Britain, then you will be quite unprepared for the scale and beauty of these buildings, and the skills and planning that went into them. There is no doubt that our visit to Pompeii will richly reward a little time off from our natural history explorations. Monte Faito is a very different mountain. A long ridge reached by cable car, the woods at its summit are carpeted with Anemone apennina, blue and white, whilst in the open areas we should find both Roman and Sicilian Orchids (Dactylorhiza romana and D. markusii), and Provence Orchid (Orchis provincialis). Around its rocky outcrops a more montane flora occurs — crucifers, violas, Doronicum and saxifrages. The views back to Vesuvius, across the Monti Lattari massif and south over to the Bay of Salerno are magnificent.

The picturesque little village of Nerano provides the backdrop for another stunning walk through olive groves and down to the coast at Ieranto. Orchids are particularly numerous here, with Sawfly, Mirror, Bumblebee and various Tongue Orchids delighting the eye, while butterfly species likely to be seen include abundant Cleopatras and Swallowtails, Southern Festoon and various blues.

We will finish our tour with a further opportunity to examine the garrigue, and the more open mountainsides, as we follow a path along the flanks of Monte Cerrasuolo, which rises to 750 metres above Positano and offers wide views around the many bays of the southern coast. These rocky areas are a good habitat for Italian Wall Lizard, Common Lizard and Moorish Gecko for, as throughout this holiday, whilst it will be the flowers that hold our primary focus, we will not ignore the many other attractions of the area — the reptiles, birds, butterflies and history. Above all, the Sorrento Peninsula is able to offer a broad-ranging holiday amongst magnificent scenery, combining fascinating historical sites with the wildlife that lives alongside them.