Easter to Ischia
March in Ischia: everything starts. With many novelties: the Garden of Ravino, wine cellars and hotels, with low season prices. Sun, sea and thermal baths. The usual Ischia? Not really. While Naples is invaded by tons of garbage, the green island is ready for Easter. And if the sea were still cold, you can go for vineyards, wine cellars, gardens and, naturally, for baths and thermal muds. On March 22 the Poseidon Gardens open in the Bay of Cithara (Forio of Ischia, tel. 081.90.87.111), the greater thermal park of the island, with 22 swimming pools.
The beach, exposed to west, gives the longest insolation and an idyll sunset. The irreducible ones of the bath in sea in every season can reach the Bay of Sorgeto (both in boat and on foot, on a steep ramp of staircases from the suburb of Panza), where you can enjoy hot rising and mineral water.
Then you can discover the vinicole firms that still cultivates the autochtonous wines: besides D’Ambra and Pietratorcia, the novelty is the Muratori Brothers’ s wine cellar “Giardini Arimei”, inaugurated last autumn (via delle Ginestre, Forio d’ Ischia, tel. 081.90.96.14). The terraced wineyards looks at the sea and from these grapes a conversation wine is born, pleasant to smell and taste.
Not far, on the street that conducts to Panza, there is another novelty: Giardini Ravino (Forio d’ Ischia, tel. 081.99.77.83). Opened in mute last year, it is a small botanical heaven, but also a cultural circle with jazz, reading of poetry and art shows. The collection of plants includes over 1000 exotic and Mediterranean varieties: cactacee and fat plants, aromatic (from the pink pepper to the cinnamon, from ginger to coffeeplant) essences, bonsai, a pond with papyruses, fior of lotus and ninfee. In March (it opens the 1° of the month) the flowerings begin: cactuses with garlands of flowers in garish colors. In the proximities there is the Mortella Garden, one of the most celebrated in Italy, born from the genius of Russel Page and from the passion of lady Susana Walton, that is still alive. Besides a botanical run of rare beauty, it entertains the musical foundation in memory of William Walton and, from last year, also a suggestive Greek Theater devoted to the exhibitions of the juvenile symphonic orchestras (had opened since March 22, via Calise 39, Forio d’ Ischia, tel. 081.99.01.18).
