You reach Ieranto on foot from Nerano, about an hour each way — or by sea taxi from Marina del Cantone. Whichever way you come, the free beach has to be booked first.
There is nothing up there: no bar, no sunbeds, no water. It sits inside the Punta Campanella Marine Protected Area, so private boats are not allowed into the bay. The path is scenic and not technically hard, but the climb back is real and there is no shade. Bring everything, and your rubbish comes back down with you.
Published guides give figures between two and six kilometres for the same walk out of Nerano. This is not carelessness. It is because they are not measuring the same walk. Two things vary between sources.
The path leaves the village of Nerano, but the marked trailhead is further on. Measure from the piazza or from the trailhead and you already have two different lengths.
At the end the path forks: one branch enters the FAI property, with olive trees and some shade; the other drops awkwardly to the beach. Two endpoints, two figures.
What we can say with confidence: plan for a walk of about an hour each way, roughly two hours round trip, with a real climb on the way back and no shade. SorrentoHikes does not publish a GPS distance it has not walked. When we have, this figure will say so.
Ieranto is reached from the village of Nerano, below Punta Campanella. There is no road to the bay and no service once you arrive.
The only way in on foot. It starts from the piazza of Nerano, drops down the main road, then takes an old mule track on the right — about 250 m of height change, roughly 50 minutes down and just under an hour back up. Near the end it forks: the easier branch reaches the FAI farmhouse (shade, a terrace and a toilet), the other is the steep miners’ staircase — the scala dei minatori, cut in the early 1900s for the seaside quarries — straight down to the beach. Access is free, from dawn to an hour before sunset.
The Cooperativa Sant’Antonio runs boats from Marina del Cantone. This is the option if you would rather not walk the path in and out.
No. Ieranto sits inside the Punta Campanella Marine Protected Area, and the protected area does not allow private boats into the bay.
The path starts in Nerano; the sea taxis leave from Marina del Cantone. Confirm that the sea taxis are still running before you rely on them.
The name may come from the Greek ierax — the falcon that still nests here — or from ieros, sacred: this was said to be the sanctuary of the Sirens, where the Greeks raised a temple to Athena, later Minerva. An Oscan inscription found here in 1985 records it. Between the myth and the sea, the path passes three things worth slowing for.
In the first flat kilometre you pass a pink villa — the Sorrento home of the British writer Norman Douglas, author of “Siren Land”. The name fits: this bay was, in legend, the home of the Sirens.
Where the path tips downhill, the view opens all at once — Capri, the Faraglioni, and a green valley of olive terraces below. It is the moment the walk earns itself.
At the bay stand a restored nineteenth-century miners’ village and the industrial-archaeology ruins of the ex-Italsider limestone quarry, with the Torre di Montalto above. The FAI rebuilt the dry-stone walls and the domed “casa a cupola”.
The free beach at Ieranto is booked through the Punta Campanella Marine Protected Area web app. The rules have changed repeatedly — numbers, frequency, time slots.
One principle has held: time-slot limits do not apply at Ieranto, because making people climb back out at midday would be cruel. Everything else is worth checking again before you go.
The path splits near the end. One branch enters the FAI property, with olive trees and the only shade you will find. The other drops awkwardly down to the beach.
The FAI grove is the one place to rest out of the sun — worth knowing on the walk back up.
Since March 2026 a Port Authority ordinance has closed the old ex-Italsider platform, the water beneath it and the sea-descents from it — the concrete structure is at risk of collapse — and banned navigation nearby. Swimming is still allowed from the beach at the centre of the bay. Booking and access rules also change every season and the official pages are in Italian: check the FAI and the marine protected area before you set out.
Everything. There is nothing up there, and your rubbish comes back down with you.
Anyone who cannot walk for an hour in full sun. Anyone with small children. Anyone expecting a beach with a bar and sunbeds. This is a wild bay reached the hard way — that is exactly why it is still unspoiled.
Older children used to walking will manage, in proper shoes.
On foot from the piazza of Nerano — about 50 minutes down — by SITA bus from Sorrento to Nerano, or by sea taxi from Marina del Cantone. The trail is the only land access.
Yes, for the free beach, through the Punta Campanella Marine Protected Area web app.
None. No bar, no sunbeds, no water.
Not by private boat. It is a marine protected area.
Sources differ widely — from about two to six kilometres — because they measure different start and end points. On the ground, allow roughly 50 minutes down and just under an hour back up, with about 250 m of climb.
Not for small ones. Older children used to walking will manage, in proper shoes.
Ieranto was donated to the FAI by Italsider in 1987 and is a Site of Community Interest inside the Punta Campanella Marine Protected Area. The FAI runs the site and its guided visits; booking, access and opening times change every season, and since March 2026 a Port Authority ordinance has closed the ex-Italsider platform and the water below it. The trail length quoted here is disputed between sources — shown as disputed, never as a GPS figure we have walked. Check the official sources before you go; most are in Italian only.