The Third Cemetery Cypress of Piano di Sorrento

Behind the cemetery's large chapel, at the gate on the main avenue, stands the third of Piano di Sorrento's registered cypresses: 2.70 metres round, a hand's width thicker than the smallest of the three and a metre short of the biggest. Verbal testimony gives all three the same birth year, 1876, when the Cimitero Comunale itself opened, a dating the Regione Campania's own tree card repeats rather than independently confirms. That makes it over 130 years old at the register's last update, closer to 150 by now, the same honest caveat that applies to its two neighbours. What sets this one apart, beyond its girth, is that it comes with an actual landmark: the register places it specifically at the gate on the main avenue behind the large chapel, rather than leaving a visitor to guess between three near-identical trunks. The two official surveys of its position agree within about five metres, tighter than either of its siblings manages, though the pin still reads approximate rather than confirmed. Piano di Sorrento's municipal cemetery is free, open through the comune's daylight hours, one Circumvesuviana stop from Sorrento station and about fifteen minutes uphill on Via Gennaro Maresca.