The Marina Piccola (Small Marina, so named in order to distinguish it from the other one, which is larger and called Marina Grande) is the place where is the harbour of Sorrento and where land the ferries and hydrofoils coming from other localities in the Gulf of Naples. The construction of the port began in 1912, but the Marina Piccola was even before the landing point preferred by incoming visitors, because it was closer to the centre of Sorrento. Then it was named Marina di Capo Cervo, from the name of the small promontory which overhang it.

The main characteristic of Sorrento is to be not a maritime city, even if it is on the sea: the high coast falls steeply over the sea without a shore (keeping far from the sea and encouraging the contacts inland) and it is interrupted only in few points by narrow and deep ravines, worn by water running from the Monti Lattari. The oldest nucleus of Sorrento was erected on that tract of the coast isolated between two connected ravines, which worked as surrounding moat for defence. On the outlets of ravines to the sea, they rose the two marinas of Sorrento, detached from the town and not protected.

The Marina Piccola is located on the mouth of Vallone dei Mulini (Mills' Ravine) , which bordered the town of Sorrento on the east. Where it was the main gate to the city (Porta Maggiore), the ravine was crossed by a bridge joining Sorrento to the rest of the flat country outside city walls. The Marina Piccola could be reached by another gate, under the Basilica of Sant'Antonino, on top of an steep stairway nowadays interrupted by the car road.

When the harbour was built, the old and poor fishermen houses on the seashore, in a typical mediterranean style with the climbing staircases and vaulted rooftops to collect the rain water, were replaced with multistoried houses in modern style because they wanted to show tourist and travellers a more respectable aspect, less popular. It was the time of "risanamenti" (slums clearance) when the new Italian Government thought to recover and advance the impoverished areas by means of radical intervention.  [ More...]