The Ultimate Amalfi Coast Guide

Enjoy the stunning hilltop towns and breathtaking coastal drives around Positano, Amalfi and Ravello. 

Southern Italy’s famous coastline runs from Punta Campanella to Salerno and includes the picturesque hilltop towns of Positano, Amalfi and Ravello. Brave the narrow, winding coastal road and discover the hidden treasures of the terraced towns and villages along the way.

The Amalfi Coast remains an intriguing mix of sophistication and simplicity. A mere seagull’s spit from the super yachts, chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz and five-star hotels, another more rural reality exists. Around precariously stacked hill villages, farmers still cultivate small plots of steeply terraced land, and their wives make cheese; down on the coast, tiny fishing communities make a living from the sea. The link between these worlds is Strada Statale 163 – the ‘road of 1,000 bends’ – commissioned by King Ferdinand II of Naples and completed in 1852. It hugs cliffs and deep gorges for 40km, slicing through lemon groves and whitewashed villages, rising and dipping above the shimmering sea. It is only ever wide enough for two lanes of traffic, with little room for manoeuvre, so traffic jams are unavoidable. And if you happen to be in an accident, well, as the Italians say with a resigned shrug… buona notte.

What to see on the Amalfi Coast

Explore the coastline along the 50km winding coast road from Sorrento to Salerno. In summer, when tourist-coach jams and the lack of anything resembling a parking space add to the chaos, it is often quicker to walk – and anyone without a head for heights is strongly advised to travel by boat (there is a regular summer service between Salerno, Amalfi, Positano and Capri).

Heading east towards the Amalfi coast from Salerno, you will leave the built-up port area, and head leisurely past the town of Vietri and its ceramic workshops to the coast proper. The approach from the west, on the other hand, drops immediately into the most spectacular scenery, looping from Meta – just before Sorrento – up to the Colli di San Pietro and down again towards Positano, with dizzying views of the spume below.

Take a boat from the quay at Positano and visit the Grotta delle Matera (which you can explore) and the pretty, disconcertingly named cove Marina di Crapolla, with Roman-villa ruins on the beach. Also stop at the three small islands known as Li Galli (literally meaning the cockerels), believed by the Ancients to be home to the Sirens, whose song so enthralled passing mariners that they went weak at the knees and allowed their ships to drift onto the rocks.

The big tourist-pull along the rugged stretch of coast between Positano and Amalfi is the Grotta dello Smeraldo, a swimming spot accessible by boat (frequent tours from Amalfi and Positano) or from a car park on the road above.

Visit the Duomo in Amalfi. Most of its prize pieces are displayed in the Cappella del Crocefisso. You get to it via the exquisite 13th-century cloister Chiostro del Paradiso, with its interlaced Moorish arches, which flanks the Duomo. In the square outside, the Bar Francese is a good place to sit and muse on the passing of empires with a cappuccino and a copy of The Duchess of Malfi.

The Duomo of Ravello is equally impressive with its bronze doors and the two exquisite marble pulpits that face each other across the nave, adorned with mosaics; there is also a good museum in the crypt. But most people visit Ravello for its two famous villas, the Villa Rufolo and the Villa Cimbrone, which is now a hotel.

The best towns on the Amalfi Coast

1. Positano

Positano had a brief moment of glory in the 12th and 13th centuries when its merchant fleet gave Amalfi a run for its money, but centuries of decline forced three-quarters of the population to emigrate to the USA in the mid-1800s. When John Steinbeck arrived in 1953 to write his famous article for Harper’s Bazaar, he found a pretty little fishing village known only to a few, mostly Italian, cognoscenti. But the cat was out of the bag and the dolce vita jet set moved in, big time, in the 1960s. Described by Paul Klee as ‘the only place in the world conceived on a vertical rather than a horizontal axis’, Positano is home to just short of 4,000 souls, although in summer thousands more pile in daily from Sorrento, Capri, Ischia and Naples.

But in spite of the crowds, Positano remains utterly beguiling. You don’t come to Positano to see the sights; there aren’t any to speak of. You come to drink in the matchless views along with your Campari, to shop for flowing linen and handmade sandals, or simply to watch the passing parade of tanned women in gold sandals and immaculately groomed men in pastel shades, cashmere sweaters draped over their shoulders. The only street level is the beachside walk, or at least it feels that way: just about anywhere else you go will involve lots and lots of very steep steps. There’s always a buzz down here on the grey-shingle Marina Grande, where restaurants, bars and tall pines line the curve of sand. In summer, the serried ranks of sunbeds fill up quickly; for the best swimming, take a boat to explore the many small coves up and down the coast, a trip that can easily be combined with a stop-off for lunch at Da Adolfo beach shack on Laurito Beach. Book a table and wait on the jetty for the gozzo with the red fish on its mast to come and pick you up.

For spectacular snorkelling in crystal-clear water, head to Li Galli, the archipelago of three tiny, jagged islands just off the Amalfi Coast where, according to Greek mythology, the Sirens (or Sirenuse) attempted to lure Odysseus to his death on the rocks. Odysseus may have resisted, but Rudolf Nureyev was less successful: he made the largest island his home for the last years of his life. Hotels will arrange the trip (in their private boat if you’re staying at the right place), or you can talk to one of the four Lucias at the Lucibello boat booth on the beach.

2. Praiano & La Praia

A few bends to the east along the Amalfi Coast road is low-key Praiano, which has a couple of very cool, rather new, rather fresh places to stay. There isn’t really a centre to the village (unless you count the busy Bar del Sole), but it has a huge church with a colourful dome, and a rocky beach, La Gavitella, at the bottom of 350-plus steps, where you can enjoy the last rays of the evening sun – bliss on this convoluted stretch of coast. To really understand the topography of the costiera here, you need to get down to sea level. You can pick up a boat in Positano or Amalfi, but you can also take a detour down to cute Marina di Praia (aka La Praia), a clutch of cottages and a small beach wedged between towering cliffs, where there’s a boat concession and a couple of simple restaurants to set you up for your trip. Heading west, you will eventually reach Punta Campanella, the wild, barren tip of the Sorrentine Peninsula and, beyond it, Capri.

But a gentle chug eastwards towards Amalfi takes you past some pretty impressive scenery. It’s liberating to be out on the water and there’s so much to take in that isn’t visible from the road: gorgeous villas suspended over the water; sea caves and grottoes tucked into folds in the cliffs; solid Saracen defence towers that speak of pirate raids and war; slivers of pebble beach begging you to stop for a quick dip; waterside restaurants perfect for lazy lunches. The jagged coastline to the east of La Praia is broken by the Vallone di Furore gorge, which shelters at its mouth a few ancient fishermen’s huts hewn from the rock face and a tiny scrap of beach. Further on is the Grotta dello Smeraldo (you’ll know you’re there from the tourist boats swarming around it), named after the intense, greenish light that filters into the cave from an underwater arch.

Just beyond the Capo di Conca headland lies the pretty fishing village of Marina di Conca, with a handful of restored fishermen’s houses, a couple of restaurants and a tiny, whitewashed chapel, all overlooking a shingle beach lapped by crystal-clear water. Back up on Strada Statale 163 (SS163), a towering viaduct crosses the Vallone di Furore, giving a bird’s-eye view of the fishing hamlet far below, and is a suitably vertiginous venue for the annual Mediterranean Cup High Diving Championship. In the hills directly above the gorge (to reach it you have to drive almost to Amalfi before doubling back) lies the little bohemian town of Furore. Beyond it is the fertile plain of Agerola, where soft-eyed, brown Agerolese cows provide milk for delicious cheeses such as the ovoid Provolone del Monaco and fior di latte Agerolese (cow’s-milk mozzarella). Apart from the dizzying views, there is a good reason for coming up here: a visit to Marisa Cuomo’s Gran Furor Divina Costiera winery, where Cuomo and her husband Andrea Ferraioli produce much-lauded DOC Costa d’Amalfi wines, rich with the tastes of sea and sun.

3. Amalfi and Atrani

The lifeblood of Amalfi today is tourism, but between the ninth and 12th centuries it was a proud and glorious maritime republic with a population of 80,000, a rival to Venice, Pisa and Genoa. The Amalfitani learnt to make paper from Arab traders, producing bambagina, a thick, heavy parchment made from cotton and linen rags, and in the 18th century the steep, narrow Valle dei Mulini and surrounding area were clogged with paper mills. The hard sell in Amalfi these days is garish ceramics, neon-yellow limoncello in gimmicky bottles and the ubiquitous menu turistico. But it’s a very pretty little town with a fascinating history, in a spectacular setting wedged between the sea and the mountains, with several good restaurants and the wonderful Hotel Santa Caterina. And if you abandon the tourist-jammed main drag and climb up into the warren of narrow, tunnel-like side alleys and steep stairways, you will be catapulted back into the Middle Ages.

Life centres on the open-air salon of Piazza del Duomo, dominated by the flamboyant, striped façade of the Norman-Arab-style cathedral with its interlaced arches and a set of magnificent bronze doors cast in Constantinople in 1066. The best place to refuel and reflect is the charming old Pasticceria Pansa, whose delizie al limone, creamy cakes flavoured with local lemons, are legendary. Juicy Amalfi lemons make excellent limoncello, the local brew that will often be produced, homemade and straight from the freezer, at the end of a feast. To escape Amalfi’s crowds, take the stepped footpath that leads over the hill to Atrani, a fishing village with an atmospheric tangle of tightly packed buildings, tunnelled walkways and staircases and a brilliant trattoria, A’Paranza. If you are driving, you probably won’t even realise you’re in Atrani until it’s too late: the SS163 sweeps right over the top of it on a viaduct.

4. Ravello and Scala

There’s a lot to be said for leaving the best until last, and for many Ravello is the jewel in the coastal crown. This ravishing town sits on a mountain buttress 350 metres above sea level, removed from the frantic hubbub below. If Positano is the glamour-puss of the costiera, Ravello is its refined, aristocratic cousin. Like Amalfi, the town used to be much larger and richer. Its once-elegant palazzi, secluded villas, dreamy gardens, magnificent views and romantic sense of faded glory have inspired a steady stream of A-list writers, artists and musicians since the days of the Grand Tour. Even now, once the tour groups have gone, there’s a real feeling of otherworldliness here, and you really should stay the night (there’s no shortage of excellent hotels). Most people come to Ravello to see its two magnificent garden estates.

In 1880 Richard Wagner famously drew inspiration for his opera Parsifal from the romantic garden of Villa Rufolo, restored in the mid-1800s by the Scotsman Francis Neville Reid. Another Brit, Lord Grimthorpe, bought Villa Cimbrone in 1904 and created an extravagant garden with dizzying views. The villa was a hangout for the Bloomsbury set in the 1920s and a love nest for Greta Garbo and the conductor Leopold Stokowski in the 1930s; it is now a hotel. Ravello is also home to the coast’s most beautiful church, the refreshingly spare 11th-century Duomo di Ravello, and its only distinguished example of contemporary architecture: Oscar Niemeyer’s futuristic New Energy Auditorium, a dazzlingly white, concrete-and-glass structure overlooking the Gulf of Salerno, designed to reflect the swell of the sea.

Just beyond Ravello, balanced on the opposite side of the Valle del Dragone, lies sleepy Scala. It is a real little charmer and was once an important outpost of the Amalfi Republic, evidence of which can still be found in its faded palazzi and disproportionately large 12th-century duomo. Steinbeck’s observation that ‘Positano bites deep; it is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you’ve gone’ could well be applied to the Amalfi Coast as a whole. In the height of summer, when sandwiched between two fume-belching coaches on the SS163, it’s tempting to dismiss the whole experience as being simply too much like hard work. But as the inimitable Gambardella sisters (doyennes of the Hotel Santa Caterina in Amalfi) point out: ‘There are bits of the old life left on the coast, but you have to know where to find them.’

Via: https://www.cntraveller.com/article/travel-guide-amalfi-coast