Sorrento (/səˈrɛntoʊ/ sə-REN-toh, Italian: [sorˈrɛnto]; Neapolitan: Surriento [surˈrjendə]; Latin: Surrentum) is a town overlooking the Bay of Naples in Southern Italy.

A popular tourist destination, Sorrento is located on the Sorrentine Peninsula at the southern terminus of a main branch of the Circumvesuviana rail network, within easy access from Naples and Pompei.

Limoncello, a digestif made from lemon rinds, alcohol, water and sugar, is produced in Sorrento along with citrus fruit, wine, nuts and olives.

Subsequently, the area fell into the hands of the Osci, who exercised an important influence there, in fact the oldest ruins of Surrentum are Oscan, dating from about 600 BC.

[5] Before its control by the Roman Republic, Surrentum was one of the towns subject to Nuceria, and shared its fortunes up to the Social War; it seems to have joined in the revolt of 90 BC like Stabiae; and was reduced to obedience in the following year, when it seems to have received a colony.

An inscription shows that Titus in the year after the earthquake of 79 AD restored the horologium (clock) of the town and its architectural decoration.

[citation needed] The most important temples of Surrentum were those of Athena and of the Sirens (the latter the only one in the Greek world in historic times); the former gave its name to the promontory.

The only exception to its natural protection was 300 metres (984 feet) on the south-west where it was defended by walls, the line of which is necessarily followed by those of the modern town.

The arrangement of the modern streets preserves that of the ancient town, and the disposition of the walled paths which divide the plain to the east seems to date in like manner from Roman times.

[6] The site of one of the largest (possibly belonging to the Imperial house) is now occupied by the Hotel Vittoria, under the terrace of which a small theatre was found in 1855; an ancient rock-cut tunnel descends hence to the shore.

[citation needed] Another suburb lay below the town and on the promontory on the west of it; under the Hotel Bellevue Syrene are substructions and a rock-hewn tunnel.

[citation needed] On 13 June 1558 it was sacked by elements of the Ottoman navy under the command of Dragut and his lieutenant Piali, as part of the struggle between the Turks and Spain, which controlled the southern half of Italy at that time.

Famous people who visited it include Lord Byron, Keats, Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henrik Ibsen and Walter Scott.

The mild climate and fertility of the Gulf of Naples made the region famous during Roman times, when emperors such as Claudius and Tiberius holidayed nearby.

[12] Sorrento has been visited by Lord Byron, John Keats, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Charles Dickens, Richard Wagner, Henrik Ibsen, and Friedrich Nietzsche.