The Water Way

Sarno. Springs, sanctuaries, and memories of the ancient river

The journey begins in Sarno in the Rio Foce area, where the river reappears as the protagonist of the landscape. This area is home to the ancient Sanctuary of Santa Maria della Foce, near which, according to medieval legend, the Virgin Mary appeared to a group of women drawing water from the spring, inspiring the construction of the first Christian temple, which was subsequently rebuilt over the centuries to become the present-day church.

A few steps away is the Parco dei 5 Sensi (Park of the 5 Senses), a river area within the Sarno River Regional Park, which is both a place for environmental education and a venue for events, as well as a privileged observation point over the springs and the first stretches of the river. Walking along the paths, among the vegetation and the riverbank, means experiencing a more conscious relationship with water today: no longer just a resource to be exploited, but a fragile ecosystem to be protected, after decades of industrial and environmental pressures.

From the natural landscape, we travel by car to the upper town, Borgo San Matteo, also known as Terravecchia, the medieval historic heart of Sarno. Here, the houses, alleys, and historic landmarks tell the story of the long relationship between the community and its river, made up of mills, canals, and small infrastructures linked to agricultural work. This area is also home to the MuDIF Educational Museum of Photography, an archive and museum space that preserves tens of thousands of photographs, from the 19th century to the present day, dedicated to the history of the territory, its agricultural and industrial landscapes, and urban transformations. Also in the same area of the Sarnese territory, the Madonna delle Tre Corone watches over the sanctuary of the same name, which overlooks the valley from above and intertwines Marian devotion with a strong community dimension linked to the view of the landscape: the view of the plain, the gorges, and the river line conveys the perception of an entire valley governed by water, its paths, and its changes.

Poggiomarino. The protohistoric city of Longola

Descending towards Poggiomarino, you arrive at the Longola Archaeological River Park, where the origins of history become even more remote. In this once marshy plain, along the course of the river, an extraordinary city emerged on artificial islands dating from between the Bronze Age and the beginning of the 6th century BC, attributed to the ancient Sarrasti population. The dwellings, built on wooden platforms, were connected by walkways and surrounded by canals: a sort of “small protohistoric Venice,” probably a river port along the Sarno.

Scafati. The sanctuary of Bagni and the tradition of miraculous water

The itinerary continues in Scafati, in the rural town of Bagni, where the Baroque sanctuary of Maria Santissima Incoronata dei Bagni stands next to a spring that has been considered miraculous since the 17th century. According to tradition, the water here healed a leper, and devotion to it has continued ever since. The building, rebuilt and restored after damage during World War II, has an interior rich in marble and a famous painting of the Virgin Mary, who is at the center of the festival that enlivens the plain every spring to the rhythm of tammorra and castanets. The symbolic heart of the place is linked to the water of the Sarno Valley river basin: the ditch, called ‘o fuosso ‘e vagne’ in dialect, where water was once sought as a miraculous cure: votive offerings, ritual gestures, ancient purifying and therapeutic practices tell of a deeply physical relationship with faith and nature, in which water becomes a link between human need and hope.

Sant’Egidio del Monte Albino. Roman aqueducts and thousand-year-old abbeys

From Scafati, we move on to Sant’Egidio del Monte Albino, a natural link between the Sarno valley and the coast, where water changes its appearance and becomes engineering, landscape, and Roman history. Along the mountainside runs the Roman aqueduct, a structure carved into the rock and mountain, which descends to a depth of 25 meters. Its function was to collect water from several springs and convey it from the area at the foot of the Chiunzi Pass, the gateway to the Amalfi Coast, down to the valley to supply a Roman villa and its monumental fountain. Even today, the aqueduct continues to supply the Fonte Helvius, a sign of a thousand-year-old design that has never stopped working. Not far away is the monumental, thousand-year-old Abbey of Santa Maria Maddalena in Armillis, which stands on a Roman villa from the Augustan age, of which the spring was probably part. Over the centuries, Benedictine monks transformed this place into a large abbey, with a three-nave church, an abbey palace, and a rich collection of works of art. The link with the villa and the Fonte Helvius makes the abbey a perfect threshold between ancient landscape and contemporary devotion: here, the water, managed by the aqueduct, becomes part of a landscape that has been layered over the centuries.

Nocera Superiore. The Roman city and the early Christian baptistery

The last part of the journey reaches Nocera Superiore, where water is the silent protagonist of the great Roman infrastructures and Christian monuments. In the archaeological area, you can visit the Domus del Decumano, the Hellenistic-Roman theater of Nuceria, and the urban park of the thermal baths. The domus, an elegant residence overlooking the decumanus of ancient Nuceria Alfaterna, with mosaics and articulated rooms, bears witness to an urban system equipped with a complex network of water supply, including cisterns, canals, and fountains. The remains of the theater, one of the largest in Campania, still preserve traces of the rainwater drainage channel at the base of the cavea. The Roman baths, integrated into the current urban park, recall the use of water for well-being and socializing, where hygiene, body care, and public life coincided.

A little further on from the archaeological area, the early Christian Baptistery of Santa Maria Maggiore ideally concludes the tour. Built in the 6th century within the ancient city of Nocera, on top of a previous Roman building, it is a large central-plan space with a dome and an imposing baptismal font for immersion, one of the largest in Italy. The fifteen pairs of polychrome columns supporting the structure come from Roman temples and public buildings reused in the Christian era, as do the mosaic floors and architectural fragments, now visible in the ambulatory and apse area.

Here, water is no longer a spring or a canal, but a liturgical source: immersion, rebirth, passage from one life to another. It is the natural conclusion of a journey that starts from the “miraculous” and rural waters of Bagni, passes through Roman engineering, photographic memory, and river parks, and ends with water becoming the absolute symbol of transformation.