Sant’ Agnello itself is a completely separate municipal commune from what is strictly speaking the town of Sorrento and walking the other way was another separate municipality of Piano di Sorrento, which was a working fishing village without the trappings of modern tourism.
The famous Victorian poet Robert Browning, who, it is said, adored Italy lived in this area and mentioned the countryside of Piano and other localities of the Sorrentine peninsula in his poem ‘The Englishman in Italy.’