Around Porto di Ischia. Breakwater and Lighthouse

From Buchner Park, I returned to the beach and continued my walk around the Porto di Ischia lagoon. opposite the park there is a parking lot for boats and yachts with a crane for launching them from trailers.

Behind the parking lot is a narrow entrance to the lagoon, marked by a green lighthouse.

The entrance to the harbor is protected from waves and winds from the west by a breakwater that goes far out to sea. The islands of Ischia and Procida separate the calm Gulf of Naples from the Gulf of Gaeta (Golfo di Gaeta), which is essentially an open sea and there are strong storms. In winter, high-speed boat traffic may be interrupted for several days due to storms, but large car ferries almost always run.

The length of the breakwater is about 250 meters, its base is made of huge boulders, on which a powerful stone windproof wall with a height of about 6 meters is built. Along the inner side of the wall there is a path with a stone parapet, along which you can walk even in a strong wind without being afraid that you will be blown into the sea. But during a storm, I would not advise you to do this.

At the end of the pier is a lighthouse with a caretaker's house (Faro del Porto di Ischia), it was built in 1868 and is a brick cylindrical tower on a foundation of granite blocks. On the upper balcony, at an altitude of 13 meters above sea level, there is a metal lantern with a 1000-watt light source. The lighthouse emits white and red light lasting 3 seconds, visible at a distance of up to 15 nautical miles. In the fifties, the lighthouse was fully automated, and since then, the caretaker's house has been equipped with emergency autonomous power supply.

After walking along the pier, we will see the entrance to Porto di Ischia. The water area of the port is a volcano crater filled with water, separated from the sea by a bridge. In the 17th century, a canal was dug to enter the lake for fishing boats, which I described in the previous article.

In the mid-nineteenth century, a port for large ships was built here, and a passage was made in the lintel. Its width is only 33 meters, one can only wonder how large ferries pass through such a narrow gap.

On the other side of the pier there is a tiny beach, a strip of sand a dozen and a half meters wide. This beach is popular with surfers - it opens out to the open sea, there is a good wave here.

In this secluded location, there is the Blue Jane disco restaurant, the oldest and one of the most popular night clubs in Ischia Porto. The restaurant was founded in the sixties and was called A Lampara, where Alain Delon, Gianni Agnelli, Mick and Bianca Jagger, Kirk Douglas, Luciano Visconti, Peter Seller, Fabrizio De Andre and other celebrities visited.

When I found a passage in the stone wall to Buchner Park, I returned there and went up to its observation deck again to enjoy a beautiful view of the sunset over the sea.