Camerota’s Chief Town

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Located on a rocky spur at 322 m. Lm, Camerota dominates the underlying valleys, covered with olive trees, up to the sea.

According to the legend referred by Bernardino Rota, a Neapolitan writer of the fifteenth century, and reported in his “Metamorphoseon liber”, the origin of Camerota is linked to the mythical Palinuro, Enea’s navigator from the Aeneid that, along the coasts of Cilento, fell in love with a beautiful girl named Kamàraton. Not loved back, the young man tried to capture the image of her reflection in the waters of the sea, but drowned.

The goddess Venus, for the sake of punishment, turned the girl into rock: the rock where today Camerota is.

The term Camerota is traced back to the most accredited hypotheses to the Greek kamarraton, which means curved, a reference to the caves of the coast, or to the houses with vault or shed and equipped with wheels, as represented on the coat of arms of the Camerota Council, made in 1602 and also visible in ancient city prisons, linking the origins of the village to Magna Grecia.

In the shadow of Mount Bulgheria, Camerota is an historic center made up of narrow streets, covered by arches, and originally protected by a medieval wall. Of the various access doors to the town, the only visible today is Suso’s door, decorated in the upper part by a marble head depicting the face of one of the Marches who controlled Camerota in the middle of 1100.

The highest part of the village is dominated by the medieval castle, which opens onto Piazza Vittorio Emanuele III. Constructed by a two-story body, it had a main tower connected to the rest of the territory, to protect itself from enemy attacks. In 1552 a Turkish army, commanded by General Rais Dragut, attacked the castle and damaged it.

All the historic center of Camerota is characterized by buildings without foundation, built directly on the rock. They are the sixth or sixth arches, which characterize the old town, visible in Pellegrino Street.

The ancient houses, still with active water springs, tanks, ovens, and important religious buildings, dominate the town.

The church of San Nicola, built in 1452, and side by side with the civic tower, houses an important canvas by Paolo De Matteis, a painter from Cilento who worked throughout the Campania region between the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth century, depicting the Trinity with St. Nicholas and St. John the Baptist.

The church of San Daniele Prophet, from the nineteenth century, hosts a painted table of the fifteenth century depicting the Virgin of Constantinople between San Daniele and San Giovanni Battista. Not far from the center is the Cappuccini Convent, a peaceful place, with the church with two aisles enriched by the altarpiece polyptych, the wooden inlay structure, painted in 1619 by Ippolito Borghese.

The center has a heliport, built in 1986 to ensure not only the landing of the ambulance but also to promote tourism. From here, following a trail, you reach the famous cave of San Biagio, a place where you can enjoy a beautiful view of the valley below.