Vallone dei Mulini is below Via Fuorimura, the business and noisiness of the crowds, cars, and birds breaks. An abandoned, ancient stone mill sleeved in moss, ferns, and other rare, verdant flora rests just 30 feet below the street, viewable from the metal rail.
It is known as Il Vallone dei Mulini or The Valley of the Mills. Bordered by the Carsalano and Sant’Antonio rivers, Il Valone dei Mulini is suffused with shade, humid air, and the distinct feel that one could fall.
The Name of Il Vallone dei Mulini
This valley was named for the mills built there. Established in the tenth and thirteenth centuries, the first were flour mills used to grind wheat. Sawmills were built for use from Sorrentine cabinet makers.
The Path to Il Vallone dei Mulini
Il Vallone dei Mulini is not accessible on foot, or to most, because it is privately owned property. It can only be seen from above—next to Antiche Mura, I found an area to look down from.
The valley’s sheer fall made me experience a little vertigo, but it is still a site well worth even a distant view. I almost felt like I had seen another world. From so far, it dizzied me, as though I had peered down into a life-sized diorama.
The Abandonment of the Valley
In 1866, when the well-known Piazza Tasso was built, it was cut off from the wind and much of the sun. In result, a rise in humid air and lack of water made the area uninhabitable by humans.
The mills there, were officially closed and abandoned in the 1940s. Advanced humidity germinated a new micro-climate that allowed rich, spontaneous vegetation uncommon to the south of Italy. Of these is the rare Phillitis Vulgaris fern which devoured the mills left behind and cloaked them in emerald.
