Vallone dei Mulini
About 120 metres behind Piazza Tasso, the ground simply drops away. A ravine opens beneath the road — steep, green, and startlingly quiet given how close the traffic is — and at the bottom, half-swallowed by ferns and fig roots, sit the stone ruins of mills that were grinding flour here in the 13th century.
You can't go down. The valley is private and inaccessible, which is partly what preserved it. The best view comes from leaning over the railing on Via Fuorimura, where the gorge spreads out below you like something a city accidentally forgot to develop.
💛 What travellers fall for
People who come back to Sorrento tend to make a point of this stop in the early morning, when the light angles into the ravine and the ferns catch it. The rare Phyllitis vulgaris grows down there — a fern species that thrives in exactly the damp, cool air the enclosed gorge produces. Worth a second look if you missed it the first pass through Piazza Tasso.
The story behind Vallone dei Mulini
The ravine itself is far older than any human structure in it — carved over roughly 37,000 years by the streams Casarlano and Sant'Antonino following an eruption of the Campi Flegrei. By the 13th century, those same streams were powering stone flour mills. In the 1500s, the Tasso and Correale families traded control of the valley; the Correale family later built the port at its base, now Marina Piccola, tying the gorge into the town's commercial life.
The valley's fate changed in 1866, when construction of Piazza Tasso sealed off the top of the gorge. Cut off from open air circulation, humidity climbed and the water supply dwindled. The mills went quiet in the 1940s. What was once a working heart of the community became, within a generation, a tangle of vegetation and slowly collapsing stone.
Good to know
No ticket, no entrance — just walk from Piazza Tasso and find the Via Fuorimura bridge for the clearest view over the railing. Ten minutes is enough. Spring and autumn give you the greenest vegetation and the most manageable crowds on the street above.
April through May and September through October are the most comfortable months — mild temperatures and the vegetation at its densest green. The gorge runs cooler and damper than the streets above it year-round, which you'll notice even from the viewpoint on a warm day.
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What travellers say about Vallone dei Mulini
Vallone dei Mulini was such a beautiful and peaceful place to stop and admire in Sorrento. It’s fascinating to see how nature has completely taken over the old mill buildings, giving the whole place a mysterious atmosphere. It was interesting to learn that the mills once worked perfectly well, but after Piazza Tasso was built above the valley, the airflow and humidity changed, which eventually made the mills unusable. A really unique little spot and definitely worth seeing while walking around Sorrento.
Great little viewpoint! You can pass by, click a few photos, and go about your day. The property is privately owned so you can’t actually go down and see it up close. The Vallone dei Mullini (English: Valley of the Mills) is a gorge where several wheat and lumber mills were built, beginning in the 1500s, to take advantage of the water cutting through the gorge. It used to run all the way to the sea, allowing the valley to vent out its humidity, but the construction of Piazza Tasso in the late 1800s cut the valley off from the sea. Consequently, the humidity in the valley sharply spiked, rendering it unfit for human habitation. As a result, the mills were soon abandoned, but you can spot some interesting flora in the valley that thrive in the extra humidity.
Vallone dei Mulini, located in old town in Sorrento was apparently abandoned in the 20th century. It is an old historic building that looks extremely eerie from up top. It looks like the whole huge building fell down the gorge. However, there’s evidence that probably squaterers occupy it from one of the pictures I took that clearly shows a beer bottle on the terrace. I don’t know how they get to the building because I couldn’t find a way, path or anything that takes you there. The building is very old and fascinating and I would’ve loved to tour it. There is a lot of greenery and shrubs around it. Even though you don’t find this in the list of things to do in Sorrento, I highly recommend it for those who love archeology, history and old buildings.
Just a cool, old, abandoned building to view from the street level. It sits like 15 meters below the street down in a small gorge.
“The Vallone dei Mulini is a beautiful hidden valley in the center of Sorrento. The old abandoned mill covered with greenery makes the place look mysterious and magical.”
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