Museum Correale, Sorrento, Italy

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Museo Correale di Terranova

Sorrento


East of the city centre, this wide-ranging museum is well worth a visit whether you're a clock collector, an archaeological egghead or into delicate ceramics. In addition to the rich assortment of 16th- to 19th-century Neapolitan arts and crafts (including extraordinary examples of marquetry), you'll discover Japanese, Chinese and European ceramics, clocks, fans and, on the ground floor, ancient and medieval artefacts. Among these is a fragment of an ancient Egyptian carving uncovered in the vicinity of Sorrento's Sedile Dominova.

The bulk of the collection, along with the 18th-century villa housing it, was donated to the city in the 1920s by aristocratic counts Alfredo and Pompeo Correale. Be sure to wander around the gardens, with their breathtaking coastal views and rare plants and flowers.