Travel story in Ischia. Thermal treatments at the Poseidon Gardens and visit to the La Mortella garden. Advice, impressions and experience.
Giardini di Poseidon Ischia experience, information and advice
Thanks to our friends, we spent the holidays in the Poseidon Gardens, doing the spa treatments.
This magnificent park is located in the romantic bay of Citara, towards South-West of I.ski, on the right side of Punta Imperatore.
There we met a young married couple who lived in ours hotels and who had explored the whole island far and wide with its beautiful towns and its own thermal sources.
In their opinion, i Poseido Gardensn are the best park on the island for its beauty, comfort, compactness and capacity just think of the fact that it contains approx 28 spa complexes.
In 2007 the park turned 50 years old.
The owner of the park, German by birth, knows how to reconcile two qualities well: pragmatism and a caring attitude towards us visitors.
Even though the park was almost always full of people, no one bothered us and there was not even the shadow of those endless queues we are used to in our city.
Ischia where to eat well and spend little
Everything was perfect, placed in the right place, and in every corner of the park you could breathe a myriad of delicious scents of the typical vegetation of the place together with the sea air.
I Poseidon Gardens, With its thermal and marine water pools, extend along the western coast of the island of Ischia.
Il shore adjacent to the park featured a beach of sand with deck chairs and comfortable umbrellas that seemed a little exotic to us for their tips made of bamboo straw, also there was the sandy bottom of the sea that gradually turned into underwater rocks and labyrinths.
The water of the sea over there it was very clear, clean and surprisingly smelled a little bit of resin.
My wife Nina and I immediately noticed the difference between the sea water of Ischia and that of our beloved Black Sea, in particular, near the southern coast of Crimea.
If you took a bath there and did not take a shower once you were out, your body would turn white with salt, and furthermore, once you washed it off, you could see your tan.
Ad Ischia those procedures were not necessary and it was not clear whether you had taken a dip in the sea or taken a shower.
If we looked at the park from the center of Forio, so magnificent and majestic, we could not even imagine that in the middle of the municipal beach at the foot of Punta Imperatore that existed heaven on earth.
From above it seemed so small, full of wild vegetation; I repeat, it is a magnificent place, the fruit of manual work and the intellect of a very talented architect, thanks to whom one could contemplate the miracle of Poseidon Gardens.
The longer we were there, the stronger it attracted us and didn't let us go away.
Ischia discos and night clubsOnly by catching our breath after a certain intoxication did we begin to see the Ischian reality more deeply.
By carefully analyzing everything that Man created on Earth, one understands on a subconscious level what was behind it: first of all, the architect's deep conviction to do everything possible to make the place bright, comfortable, liveable and at the same time preserve that beauty over time and keep it intact.
And with that thought the Ischian reality created by Man does not dominate over Nature but are in perfect harmony.
in Poseidon Gardens we admired the banquet of the many trees: webbed, cactus, Bamboo, oleanders and others that distinguished themselves from other plants with their simple and well-kept shapes.
We will never forget the live enclosures, a serpentine of narrow streets and paths made of black and gray stone or simply brick, the caves and terraces and other constructions with different surfaces decorated with beautiful ceramic objects.
A multitude of herbs that curled like a beautiful woman's hair, flower feasts in the flower beds, as lonely and proud as tin soldiers or dancers, which made the landscape even more attractive.
Rivolets, ponds, swimming pools, cliffs they were part of the polyphonic fantasy of eternal harmony, there was not a single element in contrast with the landscape, nothing dominated over anything.
Everything was in perfect harmony.
And above those divine creations there were the sky and the sun, the sea, the streams of healthy air that took away your tiredness, or the wind with its nervous and indomitable gusts, the rains and thunder, and if you like, a night under the stars and music in the dance hall for i tourists.
Every morning, after ten, we came to the park, occupied our seats on the beach and at the same time left our things near the thermal pool.
After an hour spent on the beach, where we sunbathed, swam, stood under an umbrella or simply strolled along the shore and watched the people, we immediately went to the park to do the spa treatments.
During the walk we listened attentively to the speeches of the Ischitans without understanding anything.
The sound of their language seemed to us the most beautiful music in the world accompanied by the sound of sea waves and gusts of wind.
During the intervals between one treatment and another, we practiced a sport which consisted of walking from one spa complex to another along winding streets that led us from high to low.
We went up and down those particular stairs towards the squares and terraces where the swimming pools were.
The highest square with the thermal pool it was about 60-70 meters above sea level.
All the territory of the Poseidon Gardens it seemed to us a bizarre surface: in observing the landscape from above I thought of a Colossus, a character from a thousand fairy tales, who millions of years ago, took a mountain in his hand, cut a piece of it, squeezed it and crumbled it in his hand, and then he scattered it on the ground, and over the years those crumbs turned into those squares with ladders with the blue sea as a background.
Sure, you may think that that colossus he was great volcano, source of thermal waters so precious.
And that volcano transmitted love to the sun with its paintings without thinking about anything, and so it made a miracle!
I must say that Man also took a step forward in discovering the mysteries of nature and building that park.
Here we are in front of the highest wall, a few tens of meters.
Indeed, it was not a wall, but something else, created with the help of heat, humidity, cold and wind.
Something else that turned into a monument of art, where everyone could see and recreate what existed before, without doing anything, just observing and fantasizing until the moment you feel the energy of ecstasy.
Everyone sees what they want: to some the wall looks like a mountain of crepes that are eaten by us in Russia in Masleniza, in the week when we say goodbye to winter, to others it may seem like a palm full of wrinkles, or a beautiful rose, symbol of love; probably someone tries to decipher the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the wall, as if they were mysterious messages left by extraterrestrials.
I repeat, everyone can see what they want.
As I said before, we once went to Negombo to see another spa park with our hotel neighbors.
Everything was different there.
Perhaps because in Negombo the owner of the park is of Italian origin, while in the Poseidon Gardens is of German origin.
The Italian seems to have set himself the goal of preserving the naturalness of park and thus leave the possibility of feeling the continuity of time.
Perhaps this is why the park of Negombo is characterized by less comfort and refinement, it appears intact and a little neglected and only in this way you immerse yourself in the naturalness and beauty of the park, in the peace and in the air full of scents of different trees and flowers.
During our second stay on theisland of Ischia, at the restaurant at ours hotels where we had breakfast and dinner, we had two Muscovite couples as table mates, one couple more or less our age, and the other about 30 years old.
At the table on the left were two friends, also from Moscow, Tania and Lena, who arrived on the island for business.
As we later learned, they worked for a tourist agency.
They seemed very worried, always in tension, but when we met, Tania and Lena gave us useful tips to make the most of our vacation on the island.
The young couple often skipped meals, we didn't see each other very often.
My overall impression of them: they are very kind, polite and nice.
With the elderly couple at first we had no common interests, we didn't talk much.
It was noted that, having our peers worked all their lives at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the former Soviet Union, they were already accustomed to constant travel abroad, (as I said before, those trips in Soviet times were only accessible to a few), now they were retired.
And that time their children, already adults and with a steady and stable job, organized and paid for that very expensive one trip to Ischia.
Usually, after breakfast, we talked with them about our plans for the day, we told them what we had visited and what we wanted to visit.
There was not much to say: most days began with the thermal treatments in the Poseidon Gardensexcept for the visit to the island of Procida, not far from Ischia, and the city of Bari.
Once, towards evening, I don't remember why, my wife and I were very late for dinner.
Nevertheless, the ministerial couple waited for us at the table without touching the food, to tell us something interesting and important.
The next day, after breakfast, we went there.
You had to take bus 2 at the “i Giardini di Poseidon” stop towards Ischia-Porto.
Giardini La Mortella Ischia what to see information and advice
We had spent the whole day in the Mortella and we began to understand that we could stay a little longer to savor that divine grandeur, in that oasis of the oasis.
In reality, the Mortella garden was not as large and spacious as, for example, the Giardino Botanico Nikitskij, towards the southern shore of Crimea, on the Black Sea, near Yalta, and not like the Sukhumi Botanical Garden in the North Caucasus.
These two gardens are very different from the Mortella.
I mentioned them to make you understand that I have seen many in my life and that our impressions of Mortella were not far-fetched but polished through multiple comparisons with other botanical gardens visited over the years.
I learned that the word "Mortella" in Italian means an evergreen shrub of the Mirtaceae family, more commonly called myrtle, typical of the Mediterranean scrub; the aromatic berry fruit is used to flavor meat.
For Russian people who do not know Italian, the word sounds like something fascinating and magical that inspires you and brings you to a state of euphoria.
Towards the end of our stay in Ischia before visiting the botanical garden, near the park "the Gardens of Poseidon" we saw a book on the island just published, intended for tourists in Russian.
I may have already talked about it, but the book is so beautiful that I absolutely recommend it.
In describing the beauty of the island, the authors convey a lot of love and passion for Ischia, they call it "Mediterranean paradise".
A description like this stuck to me: “As soon as you enter the Mortella, you are immersed in a magical atmosphere”. My wife and I fully agree. “Walking along the narrow streets of the park, you can meet small green oases where the water plays its fantasy games, and admire plants of rare beauty and diversity.
In Mortella there is a multitude of shapes and colors that seem to sing a praise to the harmony of the world, to peace and serenity, and at the same time leaves space for beautiful artistic and architectural creations.
Among the masterpieces of the garden to note are the Crocodile waterfall, a kind of dedication to the nymphs of the Victoria Fountain, Ginkgo Bilbao, a little isolated, seems to reign over the flowers, camellias in mosaic form.
Just remembering that beauty I feel relaxed, and all doubt and fear vanishes.
The more time we walked through those hidden places of the garden, the stronger the desire grew in us to discover all the secrets and mysteries of the Mortella, unique and unrepeatable, to try something new, to enrich our wealth of experiences with something positive.
We were full of strong and intense emotions: we felt a flow of incomparable beauty passing within us that had bewitched, drunk and fascinated us.
We had the sensation of living a fairytale in which a magical and invisible hand, capable of sensing our state of mind, accompanied us hastily to show us as many things as possible.
It was a world made of love, a little secluded, where we old people felt at the dawn of youth in the middle of the divine garden of Mortella.
We also appreciated the atmosphere of peace and serenity that reigned in Sala Thai, which we renamed the "Pergola of lovers".
The garden "La Mortella" is an example of the rich national cultural heritage and many years of experience from the English school of exterior design.
Just think that the idea of ​​the park was born in an empty, barren and sterile place, in the place where the Epomeo erupted.
Thus was formed the Punta Caruso, the place where the now stands Mortella, that just hearing her say I take my breath away! We must appreciate the possibility of seeing and imagining the future garden right away, and then, little by little, over the span of a few decades, create, build and care for it.
La Mortella was built by a couple Russel Page. (1901-1984) and Lady Susan; we will never tire of thanking them for their inspiration, talent, love and courage.
We would love to know what inspired them to create that heaven on Earth!
They had put their souls in the park.
Thanks to their patience and tenacity we can admire masterpieces such as the Temple of the Sun, Greenhouse of Orchids, Nymphaeum and Aviary.
Or the Greek Theatre with its divine stage made of sky-blue air, warmly embraced by the shining sea, where you hear the echoes of the wonderful voices and the applause addressed to singers such as Enrico Caruso, Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti!
Meanwhile, time was running fast and we were getting closer to the concert of piano music in the concert hall in the house-museum on the territory of the garden.
We were deeply convinced that we should return to Ischia, in that blessed and fairytale world, a thousand times, until the last breath.
Il La Mortella garden and that sensation of mine spinning in the air, the sensation of mystery, the atmosphere of the first Platonic love, had aroused in me a thousand memories, distant in time, of childhood and youth, of my student life, of the period in which I collected fairy tales of the peoples of the world.
But our minds and our hearts are there, in Spain, to Ischia, and if I have to be more precise, in the La Mortella garden.
After a busy day spent at the La Mortella garden we went back to Garden of Poseidon to prepare your bags to return to our land.
To have all the information on Ischia consultation:
- Ischia where to eat well and spend little
- Romantic weekend at the thermal baths of Ischia
Garden of Poseidon pictures and photos
