Residence Baia Infreschi

Not many people really know about the Cilento, others get confused because it has never had precise borders. Even less known is the Cilento National Park, a surface area of over 100,000 hectares which stretches from the Tyrrhenian coast to the foot of Campania-Lucanian Appennines, characterising spectacular landscape, natural environment and archaeological treasures, a wonderful coast jagged with white fine sandy beaches and rocky inlets.

The inland zone with the evocative natural settings, the worldwide archaeological sites like Paestum and Velia, the cultural-artistic heritage of the enchanting Certosa di Padula, the clear blue sea, site of Marine Protected Area.

The Cilento, for an observant traveller, is an environment where the border between the myth, the history and the landscape does not exist, the three elements mix together.
If the traveller arrives by sea the beaches and the rocks, the cliffs and the caves are diffused among the green of the olive trees and the Mediterranean maquis, but if someone comes by train or by car they pass through small villages located on narrow river valleys or coast the Paestum’s beaches.

Still today the myth combines the certainty of the history, evoking deep feelings and noble qualities, creating an exceptional varied and multifaceted landscape: Palinurus, Aeneas, Hercules and Vastasi (the giants of Mount Stella), the archangel Michael and the dolmen of San Mauro Cilento, the siren Leucosia, buried, it is said, near Castellabate.

The origins of the place-name Cilento are still a mystery. Subjected to a series of contrasting philological analysis, even the most credible theses call in question the worthy interpretation of the meaning of Cilento, cis-Alentum “beyond the Alentum”.

The Cilento, called Enotria by Erodoto, Plinius and Stephan of Byzantium, was occupied by the Lucanian peoples along its hills and mountains surroundings, but the coastline was involved in Greek colonization, Poseidonia/Paestum and Elea/Velia are noteworthy proofs of this. While Velia strove against the Lucans, Paestum was occupied and suffered the imposing Greek civilization.

Numerous traces of the cultural greek-bizantine activities are spread widely through the Cilento’s settings and villages because of encouragement by the generous policy of Longobard Princes together with the Latin Church.

The old watchtowers were the result of a defensive strategy against Saracens attacks. Built by private citizens and Universities before 1566, but after this date constructed by order of the Reign of Naples, along the coastline from Paestum to Policastro. Today they are used as private residences or fashionable night clubs, or they are just paltry remains evoking romantic feelings for what they represented.

The Cilento would only be hills and mountains, if it was not for the small coast plains and the Vallo di Diano, a vast inland plain, once occupied by a lake, now disappeared. With jagged relieves and a sequence of mountain ridges: some of them are spurs of mounts others are rounded hills, facing in different directions, they are full of streams and rivers.

The landscape shows noticeably differences, where the high altitude proceeds quickly from the sandy beaches to the almost 2,000 metres high (1,899 meters, exactly) mount Cervati and the other peaks: the Alburni (1,742 meters), the Gelbison (1,705 meters), concentrated internally, the Bulgheria mountain (1,224 meters) and the Stella mountain (1,130 meters), isolated, go towards the sea creating suggestive high rocky coasts.
The Cilento land is drained by the following river basins: the Alento, the Lambro, the Mingardo, the Solofrone, the Testene, the Fiumarella and the Bussento that flow into the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Calore, the Sammaro and the Tanagro flow into the Sele.

The Cilento coast, extending over a distance of about 80 km, presents long coastal sandy beaches strips at the mouth of the main rivers, the Alento and the Mingardo rocks and cliffs are also spectacular like Punta Tresino near Agropoli. The Cilento has a protected biological zone which includes the Punta Licosa, the Punta delle Ripe Rosse di Montecornice and above all the Infreschi Coast, where there is the “Marine Park of Infreschi and Masseta”, being estabilished.

The Consulting Committee of the Biosphere’s Reserves of the MAB (Man and Biosphere) Program of UNESCO, in the meeting held in Paris between the 9th and the 10th of June in 1997, has included unanimously the National Park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano in the prestigious network of the Biosphere’s Reserves.
The National Park of Cilento and Vallo di Diano, together with the archaeological sites of Paestum and Velia, has been included in the list of the Worldwide Patrimony of UNESCO.