Like the characters in Ferrante’s books, Luigi is Neapolitan and has been summering on Ischia since he was a kid. Though the property has received some updates, the rooms are simply furnished with antiques and have views of the sea or the town of Lacco Ameno, which is also mentioned in Ferrante’s books. Waiting for my mud treatment, I recalled the scene in Fellini’s film 8 ½ when Marcello Mastroianni’s character finds respite at a sanatorium-popular in the 1950s and ’60s among middle and upper-class people suffering from both physical and mental ailments. Indeed, it still administers the same treatments using mud and thermal waters that were popular in decades past. With its hand-painted tile floors and massive thermal spa, the hotel feels like a blast from the past. For example, a stay at the Albergo della Regina Isabella, a grand dame opened in 1956 by film producer and publisher Angelo Rizzoli, who often hosted his famous friends, including Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Obviously, much has changed since the ’50s, but you can still stumble upon scenes that make you feel like you’ve stepped back into her time. She returns with her friends Lila and Pinuccia, and together with Nino and his friend Bruno, they spend their days swimming and sunbathing on Maronti Beach and going for walks in Forio and Barano-places that will likely be featured on screen when HBO releases My Brilliant Friend, its adaptation of Ferrante’s bestselling novels, which it was casting during my trip.Įxploring the island by foot, boat, car, and scooter, much of the magic of which Ferrante wrote abounds.

It’s Lenuccia’s first real vacation, and the island comes to symbolize wellbeing, freedom, and romance, when she begins to fall for Nino, an older boy in her school who also vacations there.

(The island’s earliest settlers were the ancient Greeks.) In Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, Lenuccia first visits Ischia on the advice of her teacher, who sends her to stay with her cousin during the summer as a respite from the heat and grit of her working-class neighborhood in Naples. They spend their days sunbathing on Maronti Beach and going for walks in Forio and Barano-places likely to be featured in HBO’s series ‘My Brilliant Friend.’Ībout an hour from Naples by ferry, the island of Ischia has long lured Italians to its shores for its sun, sand, and mineral-rich thermal waters.

Elena ferrante neapolitan novels