The Daily Telegraph Saturday 7 September 2019 *** 23 ESSENTIALS ITALY Kuoni (01306 747008; kuoni.co.uk) offers three nights B&B at Grand Hotel Excelsior Terme for selected dates in October, including BA flights from Gatwick and transfers, from £698 per person. To book, quote tour ref: IT5951. walk tall Taking a breather after hiking up Mount Epomeo

At last I’ve been let in on Italy’s worst-kept secret ALAMY

our vessel. We arrived at the animated connected to the island by a fortified One of our final excursions was to Ischia has long been a harbour of Ischia Porto, a scruffy strip bridge. We clambered up the enjoy one of the island’s most famous of pastel-hued bars, restaurants and stronghold, first founded in 474BC by offerings. The Tears of Typhon are, shops that cuts out a line on the coast the Greek-Syracusan Hiero I, tracing according to Greek mythology, the popular spot for those in before the island rises behind. The the winding paths that chart the product of his slaying by Zeus on the port is the north-east gateway to an castle’s utility through the ages – fort, very spot where Ischia lies. He wept the know. Hugh Morris island that is some six miles long and cathedral, prison – its mishmash of with fury over his treatment, and four wide, yet rises to 2,588ft at its buildings and styles testament to its since then a whole industry has been joins the cognoscenti centre in the form of Mount Epomeo. long history. built upon the waters that seep from Our accommodation, the Grand The next day the sun was nowhere the ground rich in minerals and as t was my understanding Hotel Excelsior Terme, a beautifully- to be seen, so we resolved to tackle hot as 90C (194F). that I had travelled to set 19th-century villa shrouded in Ischia’s lumpy heart and summit We took the northern ring via the Ischia on the premise that greenery, yet an apple’s drop from the Mount Epomeo. To survive the climb, lively western town of Forio to the no one else had beaten me sea with its own private beach, sat we first had to survive the drive. geothermal park of Poseidon, which to it, that this colourful halfway between Ischia Porto and Before leaving Ischia Porto for the bay watch boasts no less than 17 pools of varying splodge of volcanic rock in Ischia Ponte. We left our bags and island’s ring road, 1,000 Fiats must Aragon Castle, temperature and purpose. the Bay of Naples was made for the Aragon Castle, on the far squeeze through a hoop in the main; a view of It was here I learnt superstar author I as-yet undiscovered. After side of Ponte, a 15-minute stroll away. 16th-century Pilastri Aqueduct. It is a Ischia, above; the ITALY Elena Ferrante had set one of her four days there I realised I was just As we navigated the passages that mystifying construction, evocative of pool at the Grand books, Story of the Lost Child, on Ischia. incredibly out of the loop. cling to the shore, marvelling at an age when Roman engineering Hotel Excelsior Naples It was another clue to the island’s The Greeks, for one, certainly know run-down facades and doorways that inspired the world, but today it sat in Terme, below left growing profile I had missed. I had, where Ischia is. They rocked up here only the Italians could dress up as my peripheral vision as I edged my however, recently read Robert Harris’ Ischia in the eighth century BC and in a appealing, and weighing up our lunch way under it and tried to hide the fact I Pompeii, which makes no mention of move that provoked geographic options from the establishments was not a native motorist. Ischia, but drew my mind to the consternation in myself founded their propped up on stilts above the lapping Safely through the arch, the road Sorrento immense power fuelling Poseidon’s first colony. They must have heard the waves, my wife told me that the 1999 starts to whip and curl as Ischia rises. Capri supposedly healing waters. same rave reviews I had. filmThe Talented Mr Ripley was filmed Cars textured with battle scars fling I was bathing in water heated by the A long list of the great and the good here. I had not seen it which only around tight corners, followed by same source that 2,000 years ago have since followed to the surprisingly made me feel even more out of the lumbering lorries and whippet-like disturbed the mighty Vesuvius, a verdant outcrop: W H Auden, Lord loop. Ahead, Aragon Castle sat atop a three-wheelers. I gripped the wheel 5 miles volcano that lurks in many a view from Nelson, the Bourbons, Angela Merkel, humongous cone of volcanic rock hard and soared past beckoning vistas Ischia. I felt small and vulnerable, but Tennessee Williams, William Walton. out towards the at the same time luxurious and Quite the mix. Even Giuseppe mainland, disrupted time and time again by decadent. I was soon stripped of this Garibaldi, biscuit muse and unifier of compact tectonic violence below. As we smugness by indulging in one of the Italy, spent some time on this craggy allotment climbed we passed fosse della neve, or Kneipp treatments – two adjacent isle, drawn to its turquoise shores by vineyards and snowholes, from which locals used to pools, one 15C/59F (too cold), one tales of the healing powers of its hotchpotch-chic make a living collecting ice earned by 40C/104F (too hot). The idea is to start geothermal waters. half-hamlets. the mountain’s altitude, which could with the hot and end on the cold, Anyhow, it felt best not to dwell, We reached the then be sold on for medical or giving your body such an unpleasant there was still much to discover. Ischia village of Fontana refreshment purposes. shock that it promises from there on in bustles with residential activity, but and began the The cloudy summit afforded us only to work harder on circulation. when it comes to holiday potential, short, sharp fleeting glances of the panorama, so The next day, on leaving for Naples, currently lives in the shadows of its stretch up to we wasted no time in settling at a table our taxi driver mentioned in passing flash and famous cousins – Capri, a Epomeo. The of the La Grotta Monte restaurant, a that it was on Ischia that news broke of nod south-westwards, and the likes of mountain itself is mountain institution cut into the rock. Elizabeth Taylor’s scandalous affair Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, in the the product of Ischia may be adrift from the with Richard Burton, as they were same direction on the mainland. At the numerous mainland, but the quality of its cuisine here filmingCleopatra . Of course, it docks in Naples, the boat to Capri eruptions, the is not; my wild rabbit spaghetti was was; Ischia, Italy’s worst kept secret. seemed at least three times as busy as landscape wonderfully silky, thick and rich. At least I too was now in the know.