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The Amalfi CoastBy ferry and busNo machine-readable author provided. Sudodana2048 assumed (based on copyright claims). — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

The Amalfi Coast

Salerno, Campania, Italy · Italy

Fifty kilometres of cliff between Positano and Vietri, on the doorstep of Salerno, where the villages cling to the wall however they can and the houses pile on top of each other because there is no flat ground. Amalfi was a maritime republic that fought Venice for the Mediterranean; today it has five thousand inhabitants. And this trip is done WITHOUT A CAR, by ferry and bus, because driving here in season is a punishment that comes with a fine. THIS TRIP IS DONE WITHOUT A CAR, and that is deliberate. In summer the coast road enforces an odd-and-even plate restriction, every town has its own ZTL with its own rules and fines arrive months later; parking in Positano can cost over forty euros a day. Leave the car in Salerno or Sorrento and move by ferry and bus. The FERRIES only run from roughly April to October: outside that season everything is done by SITA bus. Amalfi is the hub of both routes and every connection is made there. RAVELLO HAS NO PORT: bus only. Buy ferry tickets the evening before at the port ticket office or online (bus tickets from a tobacconist), and bear in mind the buses get stuck in traffic and almost never keep to the timetable.

4 days3 nights6 stopsBest season: May and September, without question: the ferries are running, the sea is warm and there is none of the crush of July and August, when the coast genuinely saturates. In winter the coast is another thing, quiet and cheap, but there are no ferries between the towns and everything depends on the bus.
Day 1The republic that wasDay 2Positano from the seaDay 3Up and downDay 4The path of the gods

Day 1 · The republic that was

Amalfi and Atrani · on foot

AmalfiNo machine-readable author provided. Sudodana2048 assumed (based on copyright claims). — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Amalfi

history

It is hard to believe looking at a town of five thousand, but Amalfi was a maritime republic that competed head-on with Venice, Pisa and Genoa, with its own currency and its own navigation code, the Amalfitan Tables, in force across the Mediterranean for centuries. In 1343 a tidal wave swept away the lower town and the port, and it never recovered.

Tip

The cathedral has a monumental stairway of some sixty steps and, beside it, the Cloister of Paradise, with interlaced arches of Arab feel. And go up to the Paper Museum: paper has been made by hand here since the Middle Ages, learned from the Arabs.

15 min to the next stop

AtraniDiego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Atrani

heritage

Ten minutes on foot from Amalfi along a seaside path, and yet another world: a village of eight hundred people in the smallest municipality in southern Italy, with a tiny square hard against the beach where people still go about ordinary life. The doges of Amalfi were crowned here.

Tip

It is the best lesson on this coast: ten minutes from the most crowded place there is a village with no cars in its streets, no queues, and the same steps, the same domes and the same sea.

Day 2 · Positano from the sea

By ferry, there and back · 25 min each way

PositanoJeCCo — CC BY 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Positano

viewpoints

An amphitheatre of coloured houses tumbling from the mountain to the beach, with the majolica dome of Santa Maria Assunta in the middle. It was a ruined fishing village half of whose population emigrated, until in the 1950s the writers and artists found it and it was never the same again.

Tip

Come by ferry from Amalfi: twenty-five minutes, and the view of the town from the sea is the reason to come. It also spares you the hairpin road. Everything in Positano is downhill on the way there and uphill on the way back.

Day 3 · Up and down

Ravello and Minori · by SITA bus

RavelloMatt c j486 at English Wikipedia — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Ravello

culture

Three hundred and fifty metres above the sea, on a terrace over the valley, with two villas that are the reason to come. At Villa Rufolo, Wagner found in 1880 the magic garden of Klingsor he was looking for in 'Parsifal', and wrote as much in the visitors' book. At Villa Cimbrone stands the Terrace of Infinity, a balcony of marble busts above the void.

Tip

Ravello has NO port: you get there only by bus from Amalfi, twenty minutes uphill. And in summer there is a classical music festival with concerts in the garden of Villa Rufolo, facing the sea.

30 min to the next stop

Minori and the lemon valleyApicellaOslo — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Minori and the lemon valley

gastronomy

A flat town with a sandy beach, rare here, and a 1st-century Roman maritime villa excavated beside the centre. But what you should do is climb through the lemon terraces covering the hillside: the sfusato amalfitano lemon has been grown on terraces held up by stone walls for a thousand years.

Tip

Minori is known for eating well and for less than in the better-known towns, and it is one of the few places with a life of its own out of season. Try the delizia al limone: it was invented in Sorrento, but Minori is famed for making some of the best.

Day 4 · The path of the gods

From Bomerano to Positano · 8 km on foot

The Sentiero degli DeiStiflele — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

The Sentiero degli Dei

nature

Eight kilometres of path along the cornice, between Bomerano and Nocelle, with the whole coast five hundred metres below and Capri on the horizon. There is no road alongside, only the track the farmers used to walk from one village to the next before the road below existed.

Tip

Walk it from Bomerano to Nocelle, not the other way: that way it is nearly all downhill. You get to Bomerano by bus from Amalfi, forty minutes, and at the end you drop to Positano by more than fifteen hundred steps or by bus from Nocelle.

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