Sorrento, Italy

Sorrento sits on the south side of the Bay of Naples, where roughly 16,000 residents live on a 50-metre tuff cliff above the sea. The town began as the Greek settlement of Syrenton before the Romans took it in 273 BC, and its streets still hold the 11th-century Cathedral of Saints Philip and James on Corso Italia. The Museo Correale, opened in 1924, preserves Sorrento inlaid-wood furniture crafted in the area since the 13th century. Sorrento is also the 1544 birthplace of the poet Torquato Tasso, and its port sends ferries out to Capri, some 20 kilometres offshore.