Ischia is the greatest island in the Gulf of Naples, with a surface of 47 sq.kms. and a population of 50,000 inhabitants. Its territory is divided into six municipalities: among them the main one is the town of Ischia, which occupies the norh-easterly corner of the island and which is by tradition divided into the two zones of Ischia Porto (Ischia Harbour), the most recent one built around the harbour, and Ischia Ponte (Ischia Bridge), the historic centre risen under the Aragonese Castle.

The harbour of Ischia had been inaugurated on September 17th, 1854 by the King of Naples Ferdinand II of Bourbon, who made it built in the small natural lake which occupied an old volcanic crater. Before the warm thermal water flowing on the lakeshore favoured a flourishing fish-breeding, but often in summer transformed it into a marsh, so this area was not inhabited up to the 17th century, when they made an excavation to join the lake with the fresh sea water, but closed by a gate to keep all the fishes inside.

When the marsh was drained, then were built the first houses. On the small hill near the southern shore of the lake it was built in the 1735 a villa for the vacations of the First Court Surgeon Francesco Buonocore, which became soon a sort of luxury clinique and royal annexed to host the most important guests of the King, who could there enjoy a pleasing holiday and the thermal cure. After the Neapolitan Revolution, whose exponents occupied the villa for its symbolic value, it came under the direct Royal property and was called Casina Reale (King's House), name still used nowadays, despite of the fact it is seat of the Army of Italian Republic.

For the inauguration of the harbour they prepaired a magnificient celebration: a great parade of more than two hundred boats came into the port, guided by the Royal Barge, followed by some military ships and a multitude of steamboats, sailing boats and rowing boats, all filled with jubilant people. The King enjoyed the spectacle on the top of the incline which is on the westerly side of the harbour mouth, where later he made build a villa in oriental style, called "La Pagoda" and which today hosts some public gardens with pinewood and a loookout terrace over the port on the inside and over the gulf of Naples on the outside.  [ More...]