A wisteria walk in Costiera Amalfitana

On your journey to discover the most beautiful wisteria in Costiera, starting out in Sorrento, continuing towards Positano and Amalfi, and then on another day to Anacapri: 

Hotel Royal, Sorrento,  wisteria pergola framing in the terrace overlooking the sea

View towards the hotel

... and towards the sea. Pictures taken in the last week of April

If you love wisteria, glicine is the word for it in Italian, April is the month for you to be in Sorrento, Capri and the Amalfi Coast. But you can also view these blossoms, though in company of their fresh green leaves, now at the beginning of May.  

Positano, Via Mulini, next to Hotel Murat: A few steps down from here, you can view these blossoms ...

Glicine a Positano, Via Mulini

In addition to a lot of wisteria tucked away in secret private gardens, there are some extaordinary examples that can be viewed by all of us. And they are easy to find. If we start with Sorrento, in mid-April, walk along Via Califano and look at the seaside gardens, that is the gardens looking out over the sea. You may start from the Hotel Ambasciatori, where you can go in for lunch and take a look at their marvelous garden at the same time. The pool pergola is covered by huge grappoli di glicine by then. 

The same is true if you continue for Hotel Royal, which has a terrace overlooking the sea, where you can lunch or take tea, and choose whether to sit below the glicine or admire it from your viewpoint of a garden chair on the terrace overlooking the sea. 

Glicine controsole at Hotel Ambasciatori, outdoor lunch pergola

Continue towards Piazza Tasso and walk into Hotel Vittoria Excelsior's garden - there is pergola walk covered with glicine. Still, you need not even go in, from Piazza Tassa, the violet patches of flower cascades cannot be missed. And you also get a view from the Bar Syrenuse area - and could have lunch with a view of glicine. 

White glicine, hotel Ambasciatori, Sorrento

My favorite white glicine coming into bloom, last week of March

Glicine is of course not an endemic plant. But it takes extremely well here in Campania and in Italy in general.  In Northern Italy, it would be mainly wisteria sinensis (China) a more robust plant, while here in the South you would also find wisteria floribunda, originally from Japan. The white wisteria which you find occasionally here on the Coast is a wisteria floribunda variety.

A part of the glicine walk, I mean, pergola, at Hotel Vittoria Excelsior, Sorrento. Picture taken in the second week of April

Glicine-clad entrance to Hotel Vittoria Excelsioir's grounds, Sorrento

Positano is my second favorite place when it comes to wisteria. Via Mulini is covered in its lower part by wisteria. So it is a great idea to walk down this alley towards the church of Santa Maria Assunta. 

And if you have missed the most beautiful flowers of wisteria, as it can be rather hot by now, go up to Anacapri and visit the Villa San Michele, where the pergola walk decked out with glicine is right now in full bloom ...

Glicine in the front garden of Hotel Royal, Sorrento, first week of April

Still, I have not yet mentioned Ravello yet, and Positano, where wisteria is particularly abundant, adorning the pastel houses of Positano, and growing vigorously in the famous gardens of Ravello, Villa Rufolo and Villa Cimbrione. But these will be other stories to tell on this blog ...

Villa San Michele, Anacapri, pergola with glicine in the first week of April. While everywhere else the glicine was just coming into bloom, here flowers come out 1-2 weeks later. So if you are late in the year, go there to inhale this extraordinary spring fragrance ...