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The hotel Parco dei Principi is located on a promontory facing the gulf of Naples, in the municipality of Sant’Agnello in the Sorrento area. The villa Cortchcow, which is now connected to the hotel, was built in 1792 for the count of Syracuse Paolo Leopoldo of Bourbon, cusin of the king of Naples, who held is court here away from the riots and intellectual flowerings of the time, creating an oasis of beauty and piece in neo-renaissance style with refined staircases of artistic value, halls, pavements and magnificent rooms facing the sea and the Vesuvius.
Thanks to the count, the temple of Venus was built at the borders of the park: a small vegetable garden was here at the end of the 18^th century, where a Franciscan friar Zaccaria cured carefully a plant from the Andes of Peru. After a short time, the friar understood the extraordinary virtues of Erythroxylon coca, which is now known as a base element of cocaine, and he wrote books about its ability of producing eternal world and extasy. At those times, important and powerful people from all over the world used to go to the “Poggio Siracusa”, where feasts, balls, concerts, hunting parties, cultural/musical meeting and many more events were organised, but the building was abandoned and sold after the death of the count. The residence was then bought in 1885 by the Russian family Cortchacow, who refurbished it and allowed the villa to come back to its original state. Because of the Russian revolution the family fell in disgrace, but the villa has preserved their name and it is still surrounded by its magnificent Bourbon park.

THE PLANTS
The count of Syracuse had implanted in the park numerous plants of the Mediterranean tradition, but also rare trees: it is possible to admire Osmanthus fragrans, Cocculus laurifolia, Ginkgo biloba, Whashingtonia filifera, Aesculus hippocastanum along the alleys of ferns and lindens. Some Cinnamonum camphora, various  Jubaea spectabilis and imposing nolinas  flank the alley of knights.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)