Piano di Sorrento

Piano di Sorrento sits at ninety-six meters on the tuff terrace of the Sorrentine peninsula, four kilometers east of Sorrento, thirty kilometers from Napoli. The upper plain has been inhabited since the second millennium BC: pottery and a necropolis from the Gaudo culture were excavated between the frazioni of Trinità and San Massimo. The town was tied to Sorrento until 1808, when Joseph Bonaparte's reform separated it as an autonomous comune.

The local name, Caruotto, comes from the Latin carottum, quarry, after the tuff pits that fed the building of the peninsula. The Basilica di San Michele Arcangelo, ninth century in origin, was raised to papal basilica status by Benedict XV in 1914 and holds two large inlaid wooden doors. The Villa Fondi de Sangro, a neoclassical 1840 villa above the cliff, now houses the Georges Vallet archaeological museum and faces the Marina di Cassano below. The marina has black volcanic sand, fishing boats and a small port that still works.