Scafati

The name comes from boats: the scafa was the flat-bottomed craft, much like a gondola, in which people navigated the Sarno, and the palaces of the centre look onto the water so directly that the town was once called the Little Venice. Others derive it instead from Scaphatum, the name the river took along this stretch, perhaps because its waters grew warmer here. In any case, until the eighteenth century the town was called Scafatta.

When Vesuvius buried Pompeii, this countryside was a way out: the finds show that those who managed to escape came here to build a life again. Today Pompeii is literally next door — the excavations are five minutes away — and sleeping in Scafati is the practical move of the shrewd traveller. It is the most populous town of the Agro nocerino-sarnese, grown on water and on tomatoes: this is the land of San Marzano DOP, which taught the world what a passata should be. The Bourbon Real Polverificio, founded in 1852 with its gardens on the river, is the landmark, today a cultural space; devotion to the Madonna dei Bagni and a kitchen built on preserves complete the picture.