Amalfi Coast

The Amalfi Coast occupies the southern side of the Monti Lattari, in the province of Salerno, along the roughly 40 kilometers of the Statale 163 Amalfitana that connects Vietri sul Mare to Positano. From Rome the fastest way is the train to Salerno, a little over two hours with the high-speed services from Termini and from Tiburtina, and from there the SITA Sud bus or the ferry. By car it takes about three hours to Vietri, with the warning that from June 1 to October 31, 2026 the Anas alternate license plate order is in force on the Statale 163 from 10:00 to 18:00, every day in August and September, on weekends and holidays only in June, July and October. The integrated Costierasita ticket for buses costs €10 and is valid for 24 hours from the first validation. It is nominative, must be filled in with a pen with first name, last name and date of birth, and also covers the urban shuttles of Positano. The Travelmar fast ferries serve Salerno, Vietri, Cetara, Maiori, Minori, Amalfi and Positano. There is no single ticket to visit the Amalfi Coast: every monument has its own, from €3 for the monumental complex of the Duomo of Amalfi to €8 for Villa Rufolo in Ravello, to €7 for the Emerald Grotto in Conca dei Marini. The Amalfi Coast has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1997, with 11,231 hectares protected and 15 municipalities involved.

If you're looking for other seaside destinations reachable from Rome in a day or a weekend, the page on the beaches and village of Gaeta and the one on Sperlonga tell the Lazio coast with the same method.

Where the Amalfi Coast Is and How to Get There from Rome

Let's clear up the geography right away, because almost everyone gets it wrong. The Amalfi Coast is the stretch of Tyrrhenian coast south of the Sorrento peninsula and north of the Cilento coast, facing the Gulf of Salerno. The western boundary is Positano, the eastern one Vietri sul Mare. Sorrento is not part of it: it belongs to the opposite side of the peninsula, the one that looks onto the Gulf of Naples. It's a distinction that changes the logistics, because whoever books in Sorrento thinking they are sleeping on the Amalfi Coast finds themselves every morning doing an hour and a half of curves to get to Amalfi.

Behind the towns rise the Monti Lattari, which exceed 1,400 meters at Monte Sant'Angelo a Tre Pizzi. This limestone wall is the reason for everything: the terraces, the staircases, the houses clinging to the rock, the microclimate that lets lemons ripen from February to October. The coast has no plain. Where there seems to be a bit of flat land, as in Maiori, there is the mouth of a torrent that has carried debris for millennia.

By Train and Bus to the Amalfi Coast

The useful station is Salerno, the natural terminus for those arriving from Rome. From the station forecourt, in Via Vinciprova, leaves the SITA Sud service that goes up the coast toward Amalfi through Vietri, Cetara, Maiori and Minori. At Amalfi you change for Ravello, for Positano and for Agerola. The SITA ticket office in Via Vinciprova in Salerno is open on weekdays from 6:45 to 18:45. Elsewhere tickets are bought at the authorized sales points listed on the Unico Campania portal, that is bars and tobacconists, and must be bought before boarding.

My advice: in Salerno get on the first bus of the morning, the one at around 6:30, and sit on the right in the direction of travel. At 7:30 the road is still empty, the light comes in low across the walls of Erchie and Cetara, and you reach Amalfi while the tourist coaches are still parked in Salerno. The same trip at 11 in the morning on an August Saturday is a two and a half hour queue inside a packed bus.

By Car on the Statale 163 and the Alternate License Plate Rule

The Statale 163 Amalfitana was opened in 1852 under the Bourbon kingdom and remains one of the most famous scenic roads in Europe. It also remains a road with one lane per direction, in some places less than five meters wide, with hairpin bends where the line buses have to maneuver in two goes. The 2026 Anas order establishes alternate license plates along the entire stretch from Vietri sul Mare to Positano: on even-numbered days vehicles whose license plate ends in an even digit may not circulate, on odd days the opposite, from 10:00 to 18:00. The calendar covers only Saturdays, Sundays and holidays from June 1 to July 31, every day from August 1 to September 30, and again only weekends and holidays in October. Windows are also planned for Holy Week and the spring long weekends. Exempt from the measure are residents of the coastal municipalities, holders of disabled permits, taxis and chauffeured hire, rescue vehicles, hotel guests on arrival and departure days, non-resident workers with a contract and two-wheeled vehicles.

Blunt opinion: on the Amalfi Coast the car is a burden, not a freedom. Parking in Amalfi in high season easily exceeds €5 an hour, in Positano it goes up even more, and you'll spend more time looking for a space than inside the Chiostro del Paradiso. Whoever comes from Rome should do this: car or train to Salerno, park in the city or return the vehicle, and then bus and ferry for the rest of the vacation. On the day you really need the car, for example to go up to Tramonti or Agerola, rent it for 24 hours.

The Amalfi Coast Seen from the Sea: Ferries and Hydrofoils

The best way to understand this coast is to look at it from the water. Travelmar, based in Amalfi at Largo Duchi Piccolomini 8, connects Salerno, Vietri, Cetara, Maiori, Minori, Amalfi and Positano with fast vessels. The company operates all year, with much more frequent runs from April to October, and also provides a road shuttle from Amalfi to Agerola for those who want to walk the Sentiero degli Dei. The schedules change by season and should be read on the company's website before leaving, because in rough seas runs are canceled without notice.

Those who arrive by ferry in Amalfi land at Molo Pennello, 200 meters from Piazza del Duomo: no parking, no queue, and the first image of the city is the right one, the staircase climbing toward the cathedral seen from below. Showing the Travelmar ticket at the Museo della Carta of Amalfi gets a discount on admission.

Getting Around the Amalfi Coast Without Losing the Day

Practical rule: one town a day, two at most. The distances look ridiculous on paper, 11 kilometers between Amalfi and Positano, but those kilometers are covered at the average speed of a bicycle. Add that Ravello is 350 meters above sea level and can be reached only by a road of hairpin bends from Castiglione di Ravello, and that Agerola is at 650 meters. Whoever insists on doing Positano, Amalfi and Ravello on the same day will see three parking lots and one panorama.

The History of the Amalfi Coast, from Roman Villas to the Maritime Republic

This coast was not born touristy. It was born as a refuge, then became a commercial power, then fell into a poverty that lasted centuries, and only at the end became the image everyone knows. Telling it in this order helps to understand why the towns have the shape they have.

The Roman Age: the Seaside Villas of the Amalfi Coast

In the imperial age the stretch of coast between Positano and Minori was dotted with seaside villas of the Roman aristocracy, built where a small river mouth made it possible to create a landing. The most important one preserved is the villa of Minori, at Via Capo di Piazza 28, built at the beginning of the 1st century AD. It has a porticoed viridarium around a pool, a nymphaeum triclinium covered by a barrel vault, frescoes of the fourth style, mosaic floors with hunting scenes and marine subjects, and a thermal sector. The ticket costs €6 full price and €2 reduced, with free admission for those under 18. The area, however, is affected by a restoration site opened in August 2025, so before going up to Minori it's best to call 089 852893 or check the Ministry of Culture portal.

In Positano the Roman villa is even more dramatic. The MAR, the Roman Archaeological Museum of Positano, in Piazza Flavio Gioia 7, is visited by going down under the crypt of the Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta: under the square there is a frescoed banquet room, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, with decorations of great quality and a colonnade overlooking a garden. The hours are from 9:00 to 21:00 from April 1 to October 31 and from 10:00 to 16:00 from November 1 to March 31. Tickets are bought online or at the ticket office, which accepts only cards, and children under 12 get in free if accompanied. A large part of the villa remains under the houses of Positano, still to be excavated.

The Duchy and the Republic of Amalfi

During the Greek-Gothic war of the 6th century the inhabitants of the coast sided with the Byzantines, and at the end of the conflict they obtained broad autonomy from the empire. In 839 Amalfi was taken by the Lombard principality of Salerno, but within a few months it returned to the Byzantine orbit and in fact made itself independent. This is how the Republic of Amalfi was born, which in the 10th century took the form of a duchy. Its greatest expansion came between the end of the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th, under Duke Mansone I.

Amalfi was one of the four Italian maritime republics and the first to establish itself. Its merchants had trading posts in Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem. The datum that gives the idea better than any adjective is demographic: in a city that today has a little over 5,000 inhabitants and occupies a gorge between two rock walls, a fleet was moving that could negotiate as an equal with the Eastern empire.

The Amalfi Tables, the Code of the Sea

The most concrete legacy of the Republic is a legal text. The Amalfi Tables are the oldest Italian maritime statute: 66 chapters, the first 21 drafted in Latin in the 11th century and the remaining 45 added in the vernacular in the 13th, which regulate freight, damages, maritime exchanges, duties of the captain and rights of the crew, compensation for lost goods. They remained in use in the Mediterranean until the 16th century. The manuscript had ended up in Vienna, having belonged to Doge Marco Foscarini. In 1929 the Italian government bought it from Austria and brought it back to Amalfi, where it is kept at the civic museum in the town hall, while since December 2010 the Tables are also displayed in the Museo della Bussola e del Ducato Marinaro, in the old Arsenal.

The Normans, Pisa and the Hard Centuries of the Amalfi Coast

In 1136 the Normans conquered Amalfi, and in the following years Pisan raids completed the job. The coast entered a long phase of poverty. This is where the landscape we admire today was formed: with no more maritime trade, the Amalfitans turned toward the mountain and built the terraces, the dry-stone macere, the chestnut pergolas for the lemons. That agricultural design, the product of an economic crisis that lasted centuries, is exactly what UNESCO inscribed in 1997 among the World Heritage sites under criteria ii, iv and v, defining it as a cultural landscape of exceptional value, born from human adaptation to an impossible topography.

The Grand Tour and the Birth of the Divina Costiera

The beauty of this coast was rediscovered in the 19th century by Grand Tour travelers, who arrived by sea or on mules across the passes of the Lattari. The opening of the Statale 163 in 1852 changed everything: for the first time a small carriage could travel the coast from Vietri to Positano. From the post-war period the Amalfi Coast became one of the favorite destinations of the international jet set, and from there comes the nickname Divina Costiera that still survives on the signs of bars.

Amalfi, the Historic and Political Center of the Amalfi Coast

Amalfi gives its name to the whole stretch of coast, and not just for geographic convenience: it was the political capital of this territory for four centuries. The town is wedged into a narrow gorge, that of the Canneto stream, and develops lengthwise toward the interior along the street that today is called Via Genova and then Via delle Cartiere. Whoever stops in the main square sees a tenth of Amalfi.

The Duomo of Sant'Andrea and the Chiostro del Paradiso

The cathedral dominates Piazza Duomo from the top of a monumental staircase, and the staging is calculated: the polychrome striped facade we see today is a 19th-century rebuilding in Arab-Norman style, while the Romanesque bell tower with the spire surrounded by four turrets and covered in yellow and green majolica tiles belongs to the building site between the 12th and 13th centuries. The central bronze door was cast in Constantinople and donated by an Amalfitan merchant: it is one of the oldest bronze doors in Italy.

The monumental complex is visited with a €3 ticket that includes the Chiostro del Paradiso, the Basilica del Crocifisso, the Crypt of Sant'Andrea and the cathedral. The hours are 9:00 to 18:45 from March to June, 9:00 to 19:45 from July to September, and with a split schedule of 10:00 to 13:00 and 14:30 to 16:30 from November to February. Those who enter to attend Mass don't pay. The Chiostro del Paradiso was built in 1260 as a monumental cemetery for the Amalfitan nobles: pointed arches intertwined on paired small columns, a layout that openly declares its debt to the Islamic architecture of the Mediterranean. The crypt keeps the relics of Saint Andrew the Apostle, brought from Constantinople in 1208 by Cardinal Pietro Capuano after the Fourth Crusade. Linked to the tomb is the phenomenon of the manna, a liquid that according to tradition seeps from the sepulcher and is collected by the clergy on the saint's feast days.

Visiting tip: enter from the Chiostro del Paradiso and not from the cathedral. The route is designed to reach the crypt last, and the sequence cloister, ancient basilica, Baroque crypt, cathedral works like a chronological story. Besides, the cloister at nine in the morning is empty and the light on the small columns is the good kind.

The Paper Museum and the Valley of the Mills

Going up the Canneto stream, beyond the built-up area, you enter the Valle dei Mulini: a damp gorge where from the 13th century the paper mills operated that produced the famous bambagina paper, made from cotton and linen rags. Amalfi imported the technique from the Arab world and perfected it, becoming one of the first European centers of paper production. The Museo della Carta occupies a historic workshop along this valley and preserves the stamping hammers, the presses and the molds. The visit is guided and shows the making of a sheet by hand. Hours and fares should be read on the museum's website before going up, because they vary with the season.

Beyond the museum the trail continues among ruins of mills overrun by vegetation, ferns and waterfalls. It's a walk of a little over an hour round trip, almost always in the shade, and in July it's the smartest thing to do in Amalfi between noon and four in the afternoon.

The Arsenal of the Republic and the Compass Museum

A few steps from the port open the arches of the Arsenal, the shipyard where the galleys of the Republic were built: two naves with pillars and cross vaults, one of the very few medieval arsenals preserved in southern Italy. Today it houses the Museo della Bussola e del Ducato Marinaro, where the Amalfi Tables are also displayed.

Here something needs to be said that has been repeated in Amalfi for centuries and that historical research has scaled back: the statue in the square dedicated to Flavio Gioia celebrates the inventor of the compass, but that figure is not documented by contemporary sources and his very existence is considered the product of a 16th-century scholarly misunderstanding. The Amalfitans had a real role in the spread of the compass in the Mediterranean. The invention attributed to a single citizen belongs to tradition, not to documented history. Telling it takes nothing away from Amalfi, quite the opposite.

Atrani, the Smallest Municipality in Italy

Atrani is 700 meters from Amalfi, on the other side of the promontory, and most visitors pass through it by bus without noticing because the Statale 163 passes over its head on a viaduct. It is the smallest municipality in Italy by area, a little over two tenths of a square kilometer, and has fewer than 900 inhabitants. The town is a tangle of stairs, arches and covered passages around Piazza Umberto I, with the beach a few meters from the little tables.

The two churches to see are San Salvatore de Birecto, where according to tradition the doges of Amalfi were crowned and which preserves a Constantinopolitan bronze door of 1087, and Santa Maria Maddalena Penitente, with the majolica dome and the 19th-century bell tower that closes the view from the sea.

Atrani is also a place in 20th-century art history. Maurits Cornelis Escher arrived in Italy on March 14, 1923 and worked there until 1935, producing 110 lithographs and woodcuts. His view Atrani, Coast of Amalfi from 1931 then returned, transfigured, inside the great Metamorphosis of 1939. Of the Italian experience Escher himself said that down there those bizarre ideas of birds, fish, skies, waters came to him. Whoever has in mind his tessellations and then looks at the piled-up houses of Atrani understands in three seconds where they came from.

Ravello, the Amalfi Coast Seen from 350 Meters

Ravello is not on the sea: it is above the sea, on a plateau between the valleys of the Dragone and the Reginna, at about 350 meters above sea level. You get there from Castiglione by a road of hairpin bends, by bus from Amalfi in about 20 minutes. It is the most aristocratic town of the Amalfi Coast and the least seaside: whoever goes up to Ravello is looking for gardens, music and silence.

Villa Rufolo and Klingsor's Garden

Villa Rufolo was built in the 13th century by the Rufolo family, very rich Amalfitan merchants who are also mentioned by Boccaccio. The complex preserves the entrance tower, a Moorish cloister with intertwined small arches that repeats the language of the Chiostro del Paradiso, the main tower and above all the terraced gardens overlooking the Gulf of Salerno. Admission costs €8, €7 for groups of 15 people or more, €6 for over 65s and for children between five and 12. The hours are 9:00 to 20:00 every day with last entry at 19:30, tickets are bought on site and there is no need to book. Children under five are not admitted to the tower museum for safety reasons. From May 2026 the villa offers free guided visits on the first Saturday of the month, at 10:00 in Italian, at 11:00 in English and at noon in Italian, with sign-up on site 30 minutes beforehand and a maximum of 30 people per group.

On May 26, 1880 Richard Wagner went up to Ravello and in these gardens recognized the magic garden of Klingsor from Parsifal, the opera he was working on. That sentence founded a cultural industry that has lasted almost 150 years.

The Ravello Festival, Music Suspended Over the Gulf

The Belvedere of Villa Rufolo hosts the Ravello Festival every summer, which in 2026 reached its 74th edition, with programming until September 27. The most famous moment is the Dawn Concert, which in 2026 was held on August 11 with the Orchestra Filarmonica Giuseppe Verdi of Salerno conducted by Alessandro Palumbo: you enter at night and listen while the sun rises behind the gulf. In the same summer the villa hosted an exhibition dedicated to William Kentridge, from July 4 to September 27, included in the admission ticket. Tickets and program can be found on the website of the Fondazione Ravello.

Opinion: the Dawn Concert is the only event on the Amalfi Coast worth giving up a night of sleep for and paying an expensive ticket. Everything else can be seen another year.

Villa Cimbrone and the Terrace of Infinity

Villa Cimbrone is at Via Santa Chiara 26, 10 minutes on foot from Piazza del Duomo in Ravello along a paved alley. The medieval structure was bought and reshaped at the beginning of the 20th century by Ernest William Beckett, second Lord Grimthorpe, who grafted onto it cloisters, crypts and pavilions with a thoroughly English historicist fantasy. The famous point is the Terrace of Infinity, a balcony lined with marble busts perched right above the gulf. Today the main part of the villa is a luxury hotel. The gardens can be visited for a fee, but hours and fares change with the season and the hotel business, so they should be asked directly from the property at 089 857459.

The Duomo of Ravello and the Niemeyer Auditorium

On the main square the cathedral, founded in 1086, preserves two ambos of extraordinary importance: the Epistle ambo with the mosaic of Jonah and the whale, and the great pulpit of 1272 donated by Nicola Rufolo, signed by Nicola di Bartolomeo da Foggia, supported by six twisted columns on lions. In the chapel of San Pantaleone is kept the ampoule of the saint's blood, the object of a liquefaction expected on July 27. Not far away, the Auditorium Oscar Niemeyer, designed by the Brazilian architect and inaugurated in 2010, inserts a white concrete sail with a single porthole overlooking the coast: an intervention that divided the town for years and that continues to divide visitors. It convinces me, because it imitates nothing.

Positano, the Postcard of the Amalfi Coast

Positano is the vertical town par excellence: the stepped houses in pink, ocher and white descend from Monte Comune to the Spiaggia Grande, and the only roads passable by car are two, the rest are stairs. The Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta closes the scene at the bottom with its majolica dome in yellow, green and blue scales, and inside it preserves a Byzantine panel of the Madonna and Child. Local tradition tells that the pirates who were carrying it heard a voice saying "posa, posa" ("put it down"), and from there the name of the town. It is a tradition, not a documented fact, and it should be told as such.

Under that church, as said, is the Roman villa of the MAR. Above the town, the hamlet of Nocelle remains cut off from the road and can be reached only on foot or from the bus terminus that goes up to Montepertuso: it is the point where the Sentiero degli Dei descends toward Positano with about 1,700 steps.

Positano has a flaw and it must be said: it is the most expensive and most crowded place on the Amalfi Coast, and in August the ratio between what you pay and what you see is unfavorable. Whoever wants Positano should go in May or at the end of September, and sleep there at least one night, because the town at nine in the evening, when the day-trippers have left, goes back to being a very beautiful place.

In 1953 John Steinbeck wrote for Harper's Bazaar a portrait of Positano that has remained famous, with the observation that the town is a dream place that doesn't seem real while you are there, and becomes real in memory after you have left. That text had on Positano's tourism the same effect that Wagner had on Ravello.

The Towns of the Amalfi Coast, One by One

15 municipalities make up the UNESCO site, and each has a character that doesn't resemble that of its neighbor. This is the part of the Amalfi Coast that hurried travelers skip, and that is worth the trip more than the postcard.

Praiano, the Viewpoints and the Evening Light

Praiano is between Positano and Conca dei Marini, stretched along the slope that looks west: the only town on the coast from which you can see the sun set into the sea. The two main churches are San Luca Evangelista, with the majolica floor and the viewpoint on the churchyard, and San Gennaro in Vettica Maggiore, whose majolica mosaic square is one of the best panoramic points of the whole Amalfi Coast. From Praiano starts the Sentiero dell'Atrio, and the beach of Gavitella is reached by 400 steps or by a small boat from the little harbor. Tip: Praiano is the right town to sleep in if you want the Amalfi Coast without paying Positano prices.

Furore, the Fjord That Isn't a Fjord

Furore has no built-up center on the sea: the town is scattered on the terraces above, with the walls of the houses painted with murals, and it faces the sea only with the famous inlet carved by the Schiato stream. Technically it is a ria, not a fjord, because it is not of glacial origin, but the name is now history. The beach is a tongue of pebbles of about 25 meters, closed between walls some 30 meters high, with the bridge of the Statale 163 passing over the bathers' heads. You go down about 200 steps carved into the rock, 10 or 15 minutes on the way down and many more on the way back. The SITA stop is called Fiordo di Furore and is right at the start of the staircase. Under the bridge survive the monazzeni, the old fishermen's shelters that in other times sheltered smugglers.

Every first Sunday of July the fjord hosts the MarMeeting, a world high-diving competition, with athletes who jump from 23 to 28 meters. In the same inlet Roberto Rossellini shot episodes of the film L'Amore with Anna Magnani, and the romantic affair between the director and the actress remains part of the local myth.

Conca dei Marini, the Sfogliatella and the Grotto

Conca dei Marini is a town of a few hundred inhabitants stretched on a promontory, with the Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista and the little marina around the Saracen tower. The sfogliatella Santa Rosa comes from here, born in the monastery of the same name according to an 18th-century tradition and then brought to Naples where it became the pastry we know. On the territory of Conca opens the Grotta dello Smeraldo, which deserves a chapter of its own.

Maiori and Minori, the Two Sisters of the Eastern Coast

Maiori has the longest seafront and the widest beach of the Amalfi Coast, the result of the flood of 1954 that devastated the town and changed its profile. Above the built-up area you see the Collegiata di Santa Maria a Mare with the majolica dome, and higher up the Castello di San Nicola de Thoro Plano, a Norman-era fortification with towers and curtain walls that is reached on foot in about 40 minutes of steep climb. Roberto Rossellini shot in Maiori part of Paisà and of his other films, and the town was for years a natural set of neorealism.

Minori, right after, is more compact: the Basilica di Santa Trofimena keeps the relics of the patron saint, and the Roman villa we have mentioned occupies the center of the town. Minori is also the minor gastronomic capital of the coast, home of 'ndunderi, ricotta gnocchi of very ancient tradition, and of fresh handmade pasta.

Cetara, the Town of Anchovies

Cetara is the most authentic fishing village of the Amalfi Coast, the only one where the fishing fleet still works for real, with the lampare for anchovies and the boats for tuna. The name probably derives from the Latin cetaria, the tuna-fishing stations. The town gathers around the viceregal tower and the Chiesa di San Pietro Apostolo with the majolica dome. Here the colatura di alici is produced, which we talk about further on.

Vietri sul Mare, the Gateway to the Amalfi Coast

Vietri sul Mare is the first town you meet arriving from Salerno, and the one most tied to a trade: ceramics. Its workshops have been working since the 1500s, and the urban landscape is a catalog of domes, portals, signs and painted riggiole. The hamlet of Albori, clinging to the mountain above the main town, is part of the circuit of the Most Beautiful Villages in Italy.

Scala, the Oldest Town on the Amalfi Coast

Scala looks at Ravello from the other side of the Dragone valley and is considered the oldest foundation on the coast. It has a Romanesque cathedral dedicated to San Lorenzo, with a crypt that keeps a Deposition in stucco, and the hamlet of Pontone from which the trail starts for the Torre dello Ziro and for the Valle delle Ferriere. Scala has a quality that the other towns have lost: silence. In August, when Amalfi is impassable, going up to Scala costs 20 minutes of bus and gives back the Amalfi Coast as it was.

Tramonti, the Great Park of the Amalfi Coast

Tramonti does not face the sea: it is a set of 13 hamlets scattered among the passes of the Monti Lattari, among vineyards, chestnut groves and old rural churches. Here the wines of the Costa d'Amalfi are produced, here the liqueur concerto is born, and from here after the war left the pizza makers who opened pizzerias across half of northern Italy. The Chiunzi pass, at 656 meters, offers the view that explains the geography better than a map: on one side the coast, on the other the Agro Nocerino Sarnese and Vesuvius.

The Border Municipalities of the Amalfi Coast

The administrative geography of this coast is more complicated than it seems. The coastal municipalities, together with Sant'Egidio del Monte Albino and Corbara, were united in the Comunità Montana Penisola Amalfitana, dissolved in 2008. In the Comunità Montana Monti Lattari fall instead, for the Amalfi side, Scala, Sant'Egidio del Monte Albino, Corbara and Tramonti, and for the Sorrento side Agerola, Pimonte, Casola di Napoli and Lettere.

There are then three border cases that disorient whoever looks at the map. Vico Equense, a municipality of the metropolitan city of Naples and belonging to the Sorrento peninsula, has a small outlet on the Amalfi side in the hamlet of Arola, with the beach of Tordigliano. Agerola, also in the province of Naples, extends its southern borders to about a kilometer from the coastlines of Praiano and Positano, and is the starting point of the Sentiero degli Dei. Piano di Sorrento, again in the Naples area and again on the Sorrento peninsula, faces onto this side. The practical lesson: when you book on the Amalfi Coast, look at the municipality, not at the commercial name of the property.

The Grotta dello Smeraldo of Conca dei Marini

The Grotta dello Smeraldo opens under the Statale 163 in the territory of Conca dei Marini. It is a karst cavity of about 45 meters by 32, 24 high, with stalactites and stalagmites fused into columns that reach 10 meters. The color that gives it its name comes from a submerged opening: the sunlight enters from below the water surface and the sea inside lights up green.

The grotto was discovered in 1932 by the fisherman Luigi Buonocore. Since 1956 a ceramic nativity scene rests on the bottom, and at Christmas time divers go down to lay flowers. Admission costs €7 per person. The hours indicated are 10:00 to 16:00 every day, with closure on holidays and in case of rough sea. You access it from the parking lot along the Statale 163 going down by elevator or by stairs, and then with small rowboats steered by local boatmen. Alternatively you arrive by sea from the port of Amalfi, with a transfer of about €10 round trip to which the grotto ticket must be added.

The right moment is around 13:00, when the sun is high enough to go through the submerged opening. Going at 10:00 in the morning means seeing a dark grotto with a bit of green at the back. Is it worth it? If you have a free half day and the sea is calm, yes. If you have to choose between the grotto and the Sentiero degli Dei, choose the trail.

The Sentiero degli Dei and the Trails of the Amalfi Coast

The Sentiero degli Dei, trail marker CAI 327, connects Bomerano di Agerola to Nocelle di Positano running at mid-slope between 500 and 600 meters of elevation, inside the Monti Lattari Regional Park. The route measures about 7.5 kilometers, with a total elevation change of 638 meters adding up climbs and descents, and takes about four hours to walk. The difficulty is classified E, hiking, but with exposed stretches that discourage anyone who suffers from vertigo.

The landmarks are, in order, Bomerano as the start, the Grotta Biscotto at 588 meters with its spring, the Colle la Serra at 578 meters, the Cannati panoramic area, and then Nocelle. From Nocelle you can go down to Positano by about 1,700 steps or take the bus to Positano avoiding the descent, which is the hardest part on the knees.

Operational advice, and on this I don't compromise: you walk from Bomerano toward Nocelle, never the other way. In the right direction the elevation change is mostly downhill and you always have the panorama in front of you. In the opposite direction you climb with the sun in your face and look at the rock. To reach Bomerano from Amalfi there are the SITA bus for Agerola and the Travelmar shuttle. Set out at eight in the morning, bring two liters of water per person, shoes with a lugged sole, a hat. It is not a stroll: it is a real hike on rocky ground.

The Amalfi Coast has other trails that deserve as much as the famous one and are almost deserted. The Valle delle Ferriere above Amalfi, a state nature reserve, is a damp canyon where the fern Woodwardia radicans survives, a relict of the Tertiary, together with waterfalls and ruins of medieval ironworks. The trail to the Torre dello Ziro starts from Pontone di Scala and leads in just under half an hour to a cylindrical tower on a sloped base that dominates Amalfi and Atrani. The Sentiero dei Limoni connects Maiori to Minori among the terraced citrus groves, an hour of steps with a continuous view over the gulf.

The Flavors of the Amalfi Coast

Here the cuisine is the daughter of geography: blue fish from the sea, lemons and grapes from the terraces, dairy products and chestnuts from the mountain of the Lattari. It is not a rich cuisine, it is an intelligent cuisine.

The Costa d'Amalfi PGI Lemon, the Sfusato Amalfitano

The sfusato amalfitano obtained the protected geographical indication on July 4, 2001. The zone includes Amalfi, Atrani, Cetara, Conca dei Marini, Furore, Maiori, Minori, Positano, Praiano, Ravello, Scala, Tramonti and Vietri sul Mare. The fruit is elliptical and tapered, of about 100 grams, with a medium-thick peel very rich in essential oils, straw-yellow seedless pulp, abundant and very acidic juice. Studies indicate in this lemon a quantity of aromatic compounds almost double that of other varieties: it is the reason why limoncello made here doesn't resemble the industrial kind.

Cultivation takes place on terraces supported by dry-stone walls, under pergolas of chestnut poles at least 180 centimeters high, covered in winter with the pagliarelle. Harvesting is by hand, from February to October, and the fruit must never touch the ground. When they tell you that a lemon from the Amalfi Coast is expensive, this is the reason: every crate leaves the terrace on someone's shoulders or on a monorail.

The Colatura di Alici di Cetara PDO

The colatura di alici di Cetara obtained the protected designation of origin in October 2020. It is obtained by layering cleaned anchovies and salt inside a small chestnut vat called terzigno, pressing them with a weight for months and collecting the amber liquid that rises to the surface. It is the direct descendant of the garum of the ancient Romans, the fermented fish sauce that seasoned almost all imperial cooking and that was produced in plants along the whole Tyrrhenian coast. Whoever wants to understand the Roman context of this sauce can stop by Garum, Library and Museum of Cuisine at the Circus Maximus, which dedicates an entire section to the theme of ancient cuisine.

There is only one dish to try: spaghetti with the colatura, garlic, parsley, oil, no cheese, no added salt. If a restaurant serves them to you with tomato, change restaurant.

The Concerto of Tramonti and the Other Liqueurs

The concerto is a liqueur produced in Tramonti with a blend of about 15 spices and herbs, including licorice, fennel, cloves, nutmeg, edelweiss and mentuccia, on a barley base. Limoncello is made with the peels of the sfusato, finocchietto with wild seeds, and in homes nocillo is still produced with walnuts picked in June.

Sweets, Cheeses and Wine of the Costa d'Amalfi

The sfogliatella Santa Rosa was born in Conca dei Marini. The delizia al limone, a small sponge-cake dome soaked and covered in lemon cream, is instead a 20th-century invention of the pastry chef Carmine Marzuillo and today it is the symbol dessert of the coast. In Agerola fiordilatte is produced, and on the Lattari the provolone del Monaco PDO. The wines of Costa d'Amalfi DOC are divided into the subzones Furore, Ravello and Tramonti, with local grape varieties such as falanghina, biancolella, ginestra, piedirosso, sciascinoso and tintore. The vines of Tramonti preserve pre-phylloxera vines on their own roots, that is, not grafted, a rarity in Europe.

The Ceramics of Vietri and the Ceramics Museum

Vietri ceramics have a long history, but their most interesting moment is the so-called German period, between 1920 and 1947, when a group of foreign artists arrived in Vietri and rewrote the local decorative language: among them the Polish Irene Kowaliska and the German Richard Dolker, whose stylized donkeys, peasants and fish have become the classic repertoire of the Amalfi Coast.

The Museo della Ceramica occupies the Torretta Belvedere of Villa Guariglia, in the hamlet of Raito di Vietri sul Mare. Ambassador Raffaele Guariglia donated the villa to the Province of Salerno in 1970 and the museum was inaugurated on May 9, 1981. There are three sections: religious ceramics with votive tiles and domestic holy water fonts from the 1600s, utility ceramics with 19th-century tableware and flasks, and the production of the German period. Admission is free and the hours indicated are Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00 to 15:00, closed on Monday. From Salerno you get there with bus lines 4 and 9, or on foot, two kilometers from the Vietri station. Those interested in Italian ceramics who stay in Lazio can compare this collection with that of the Ceramics Museum in Sermoneta, which has free admission and tells a completely different tradition.

Buying tip: on the Amalfi Coast buy where you see the potter's wheel and the kiln, not where you see 50 identical shop windows. Hand-painted ceramics have the mark of the brush that smudges slightly on the edge and the base with the three points of support of the stilt. Printed ones don't.

When to Go to the Amalfi Coast and When to Avoid It

From mid-April to the end of May is the best period of all: the broom is in bloom on the ridges, the lemons smell sweet, the sea is cold but the trails are perfect, hotel prices are half those of August and the Statale 163 is passable. Late September and the first half of October are the second good period, with the sea still warm and the golden light that photographers wait for all year.

July and August are the worst time to visit the Amalfi Coast, and I say it without softening. Temperatures exceed 30 degrees, the road is saturated, buses leave people on the ground, ferries fill up, restaurants run two seatings and quality drops. If you have no alternative, reorganize the day: wake up at six, sightseeing until 11, a long break indoors or in the water, resume after five in the afternoon.

Winter has its own small and intelligent audience. From November to February many hotels close, the Museo della Carta and the monuments reduce their hours, rough seas cancel the ferries. On the other hand Amalfi is quiet, the Christmas lights of Salerno are 20 minutes away by bus, and in the Grotta dello Smeraldo there is the underwater nativity scene.

Which Town on the Amalfi Coast Is Best to Stay In

If you come for the first time and want to get around without a car, the base is Amalfi: it is the hub of all buses and all ferries. If you want quiet and panorama, Praiano or Scala. If you want music and gardens, Ravello. If you have small children and need a wide beach with services, Maiori. If you want to eat real fish and spend the right amount, Cetara. Positano only if the budget is not an issue and if you stay at least two nights.

The Amalfi Coast with Children

It has to be said clearly: this is not a comfortable destination for families with very small children. Stairs are everywhere, strollers are almost unusable in Positano and Atrani, and the flat stretches can be counted on the fingers. Whoever has a child under three should bring a child-carrier backpack, not a stroller.

With kids from six years up the Amalfi Coast works very well. The things that win them over are, in order: the boat tour with the passage under the bridge of Furore, the Grotta dello Smeraldo reached by rowboat, the making of a sheet of paper at the Museo della Carta, the seabed of the Cetara beach with mask and snorkel, and the race up the steps at Nocelle. The most suitable beaches are the wide ones of Maiori and Minori, sandy and with equipped beach clubs. Furore and Gavitella are spectacular but are reached only with hundreds of steps.

A warning about transport: on the SITA buses in high season you travel standing and squeezed, with the curves. If the child gets carsick, the ferry is the solution, because the sea of the Gulf of Salerno in summer is almost always calm in the morning.

Accessibility on the Amalfi Coast

The verticality of this coast creates objective barriers, and it would be wrong to tell the opposite. Some things do work, though. The seafront of Maiori is flat and continuous, the most practicable on the Amalfi Coast in a wheelchair. The MAR of Positano declares an accessible route through the Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta. The Grotta dello Smeraldo has an elevator from the Statale 163, but the final transfer takes place on rowboats and must be evaluated case by case. The center of Amalfi, from the marina to Piazza Duomo, is flat, while the cathedral staircase has no alternative: whoever can't climb it can ask at the ticket office for access from the cloister side. Holders of disabled permits are exempt from the alternate license plates on the Statale 163. For the monuments, the right thing is to phone the day before: local operators know routes and elevators that appear on no website.

How Much a Day on the Amalfi Coast Costs

Let's do the real math, for one person, on a mid-season day. Train from Rome to Salerno round trip: very variable fares, from a few tens of euros if you book far in advance. Costierasita ticket for the buses: €10 for 24 hours. Monumental complex of the Duomo of Amalfi: €3. Villa Rufolo in Ravello: €8. Grotta dello Smeraldo: €7. Roman villa of Minori: €6 full price, €2 reduced. Add a lunch, and with about €40 of admissions and local transport you have covered a full day.

Where you really save: using the buses instead of private transfers, buying the day ticket instead of single rides, having lunch in a bakery with a folded slice of pizza instead of a restaurant with a view, and choosing the shoulder season. Where it isn't worth saving: on shoes and on water if you walk, and on time. The Amalfi Coast punished in haste gives back less than it costs.

What to See Around the Amalfi Coast

The surrounding territory holds up to the comparison with the coast. Pompeii and Herculaneum are less than an hour from Vietri by rail. Paestum, with the three best-preserved Doric temples in Italy, is a little south of Salerno. Capri is reached by hydrofoil from Positano and from Amalfi in the warm months. Salerno itself, often dismissed as a hub, has a Norman cathedral with the crypt of San Matteo and the Giardino della Minerva, the first botanical garden in Europe linked to the Salernitan Medical School.

Whoever arrives by car from Rome can break the trip with a detour to the Royal Palace of Caserta, which is exactly halfway and has its entrance in front of the railway station. On the way back, along the Pontine coast, worth a stop are Formia with its Roman remains and the Villa of Tiberius in Sperlonga, where the grotto with the Homeric sculptural groups tells the same imperial taste for the seaside villa that at Minori and Positano is seen on a smaller scale.

A Curiosity About the Amalfi Coast

The Order of Malta, that is the longest-lived chivalric institution in Europe, has its roots on this coast. In the second half of the 11th century Amalfitan merchants active in Jerusalem supported the founding of the hospital of Saint John, meant to welcome Latin pilgrims. The first grand master of the Order of the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem was Gerardo Sasso, originally from Scala, that is from the oldest town of the Amalfi Coast. From that hospital descend, in a direct line, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the eight-pointed cross that everyone recognizes.

It is worth understanding why it was possible. In the 11th century the Amalfitans had permanent trading posts in the ports of the Levant and enjoyed commercial privileges both in Constantinople and in the Fatimid territories: they were the only Latins who could move with relative freedom in a divided Mediterranean. A hospital for pilgrims in the Holy Land was, before being a charitable work, a logistical service that only a merchant network like theirs could sustain. The little town of Scala, today 1,200 inhabitants and a few Romanesque churches, gave Europe an institution that survived nine centuries of history.

There is a curious corollary. In the cathedral of Scala is kept a 13th-century bishop's miter embroidered with pearls and enamels, of a quality that suggests a court workshop: an object that should not be in a mountain town. It is the material residue of that network. The Amalfi Coast, before being a landscape, was a system of relationships along 3,000 kilometers of sea, and every so often it leaves on the table an object that doesn't match the poverty of the following centuries.

Something Nobody Tells You About the Amalfi Coast

A large part of medieval Amalfi is no longer visible because it is underwater. On November 25, 1343 a very violent sea storm, connected to a tsunami attributed to the activity of Stromboli, struck the coast and destroyed a large part of the lower city: the port, the arsenal in its original extension, entire neighborhoods facing the sea. The event is not a popular tradition: it was described by Francesco Petrarca, who was in Naples in those days and left an account of it in a letter. Underwater archaeological surveys in front of the marina of Amalfi have yielded wall structures and materials consistent with that lost settlement.

This fact changes the way you look at Amalfi. When people complain that the city seems small to have been a maritime republic, the answer is that the big city is no longer there: what we see is the upper part, which survived because it was perched. The same is true of the rest of the Amalfi Coast, where floods kept reshaping the towns until yesterday: the one of October 25, 1954 hit Maiori, Minori, Tramonti, Vietri and Salerno, caused hundreds of deaths and wiped out entire neighborhoods, and the wide seafront of Maiori that today looks like an urban-planning luxury is actually the result of that catastrophe.

The second thing nobody says concerns the present. The towns of the Amalfi Coast are losing population: the average age rises, houses become short-term rentals, schools close, and abandoned terraces are the first cause of the instability that every fall closes the Statale 163 because of landslides. Whoever buys a lemon picked by hand on a maintained macera, or eats in a family-run trattoria instead of a place with a menu in six languages, supports the only thing that keeps this landscape standing.

My Advice for Visiting the Amalfi Coast

There is only one piece of advice and it is worth more than all the others put together: sleep on the Amalfi Coast, at least three nights, and give up the car. The day trip from Rome or Naples is the worst way to get to know this coast, because it delivers you exactly the two worst hours, those between 11 and three, inside the two most crowded towns, with the anxiety of the last bus. Whoever sleeps here sees the other Amalfi Coast: Amalfi at seven in the morning with the fishermen and the bakery opening, Positano at 22:00 with the lit staircases and no lines, Ravello at dawn.

The second piece of advice concerns pace. Set one town per day and allow yourself only one demanding excursion. An itinerary that always works: first day Amalfi and the Valle dei Mulini, second day Ravello with Villa Rufolo and Villa Cimbrone, third day the Sentiero degli Dei from Bomerano arriving in Positano in the afternoon, fourth day sea at Cetara or Maiori and a visit to the Roman villa of Minori. Whoever has a fifth day should spend it in Scala and Tramonti, where they won't find anyone.

Third piece of advice, the most boring and the most useful: buy the bus tickets in advance and always keep the €10 day ticket. In high season you may have to skip a run because it's full, and whoever has no ticket also loses the next one looking for an open bar. And bring cash: some ticket offices and some boatmen don't accept cards, while at the MAR in Positano the opposite is true and you pay only by card.

Another Well-Known Fact, Yet Rarely Cited

Everyone knows that the Amalfi Coast has been a World Heritage site since 1997. Almost nobody knows what UNESCO actually inscribed. Not the panorama, not the sea, not the towns for being beautiful: the inscription concerns 11,231 hectares and 15 municipalities, and it is justified under criteria ii, iv and v as a cultural landscape, that is, as an exceptional example of human adaptation to an extreme topography, from the vine terraces of the low elevations to the high-altitude pastures on the Lattari.

The difference isn't academic, it's practical. It means that what is protected is the dry-stone walls, the pergolas, the connecting trails, the paper mills, the forms of the medieval settlement with its Arab-Norman architecture. It means that an abandoned terrace is a piece of world heritage that is lost, exactly as a frescoed room left to the water would be. And it means that the recognized value comes from the period of greatest splendor of the Republic of Amalfi between the 9th and 11th centuries and from its built legacy, not from the villas of 20th-century stars.

I add a datum that makes the point concrete: the dry-stone walls that support the terraces of the Costa d'Amalfi measure in total hundreds of linear kilometers, and they have to be rebuilt by hand periodically because frost and rain undermine them. There is no machine that builds them. When in a shop in Amalfi they sell you a bottle of limoncello at a price that seems high to you, this is in there too.

The Right Photo to Take on the Amalfi Coast

The symbol photograph of the Amalfi Coast is only one and it's taken from Positano: you shoot it from Via Cristoforo Colombo, the upper stretch of the road that enters the town from the west, with the stepped houses, the majolica dome of the Assunta and the Spiaggia Grande below. It should be done at sunset, when the sun lights the facade of the houses instead of backlighting them, or early in the morning if you want clean blue without haze.

The other three that I recommend are less obvious. The first: the bell tower of the Duomo of Amalfi with the majolica spire, photographed not from the square but from Via Pietro Capuano, where the alleys frame it between two walls. The second: the bridge of the Statale 163 over the fjord of Furore, shot from below standing on the beach, with the arch cutting the sky and a diver if you are there the first Sunday of July. The third: the Terrace of Infinity at Villa Cimbrone in Ravello, with the row of marble busts and the gulf in the background, to be done between 9:00 and 10:00 in the morning when the light is still low and there is no line.

A technical observation: on the Amalfi Coast the noon light is terrible. The limestone walls burn, the sea turns white and the towns lose their relief. The two hours after dawn and the two before sunset are worth, photographically, 10 hours of noon. And if you only have noon, go down below: from the boat, with the sun high, the vertical walls and the hanging houses come out better than from land.

Some Important Events That Happened Here in History

839 is the date of the political birth of the Amalfi Coast: Amalfi, conquered by the Lombard principality of Salerno, escaped Lombard control within a few months and started the path that would make it an autonomous duchy in the 10th century.

In the 11th century the city reaches its peak of splendor under Mansone I, and in those same years Amalfitan merchants contribute to the founding of the hospital of Jerusalem from which the Order of Malta will be born. In 1087 the bronze door of San Salvatore de Birecto arrives in Atrani, cast in Constantinople like that of the Amalfi cathedral.

In 1136 the Normans take Amalfi, and the following Pisan raids close the season of maritime power. In 1208 Cardinal Pietro Capuano brings to Amalfi from Constantinople the relics of Saint Andrew, after the Fourth Crusade: this is the origin of the pilgrimage that still fills the crypt today. In 1260 the Chiostro del Paradiso is built. In 1272 Nicola Rufolo donates to the Duomo of Ravello the pulpit signed by Nicola di Bartolomeo da Foggia.

On November 25, 1343 the sea storm linked to the tsunami destroys a large part of lower Amalfi, an event described by Petrarca. At the beginning of the 16th century takes place the story of Giovanna d'Aragona, Duchess of Amalfi, which local tradition places in the Torre dello Ziro above Atrani. In 1852 the Statale 163 Amalfitana is opened and the coast stops being reachable only by sea or by mule track.

In 1932 the fisherman Luigi Buonocore discovers the Grotta dello Smeraldo in Conca dei Marini, and from 1956 the ceramic nativity scene is placed on its seabed. In 1929 the Italian government buys back from Austria the manuscript of the Amalfi Tables and brings it back to Amalfi. On October 25, 1954 the flood devastates Maiori, Minori, Tramonti, Vietri and Salerno, with hundreds of victims and a reconstruction that redraws the seafronts. In 1997 comes the inscription of the Amalfi Coast on the UNESCO World Heritage list. In 2010 the Auditorium designed by Oscar Niemeyer opens in Ravello, and in December of the same year the Amalfi Tables are displayed in the Museo della Bussola e del Ducato Marinaro.

Who Has Passed Through the Amalfi Coast

The list of illustrious travelers of this coast is as long as its modern history. In 1222 Saint Francis of Assisi stopped in Atrani during a journey toward Amalfi. In 1879 Henrik Ibsen spent three months in Amalfi, where he worked on A Doll's House. On May 26, 1880 Richard Wagner, traveling toward Ravello, stopped in Atrani and then recognized in the gardens of Villa Rufolo the magic garden of Klingsor from Parsifal, whose second act he composed in Ravello.

The early 20th century brings the English to Ravello: E. M. Forster wrote the story Story of a Panic at Villa Episcopio, Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury group, with John Maynard Keynes, frequented Villa Cimbrone, and in 1927 D. H. Lawrence worked here on Lady Chatterley's Lover. Maurits Cornelis Escher, arrived in Italy in March 1923, drew Atrani, Ravello and their Moorish decorations, and from those forms drew the ideas that in 1939 flowed into Metamorphosis.

In 1938 Greta Garbo and the conductor Leopold Stokowski chose Villa Cimbrone in Ravello for their love escape, and the news went around the world. In 1953 John Steinbeck signed for Harper's Bazaar the portrait of Positano that gave the town its international fame, and in the same year Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida and Jennifer Jones shot in Ravello John Huston's Beat the Devil. Gore Vidal lived for over 30 years in Ravello in the villa La Rondinaia and became an honorary citizen. Roberto Rossellini shot between Maiori and the fjord of Furore, with Anna Magnani, central pages of Italian neorealism.

Among the famous guests who made the Costa d'Amalfi a summer residence are counted the first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, King Vittorio Emanuele III of Savoy, the entrepreneur Gianni Agnelli, the actresses Grace Kelly, Greta Garbo and Sophia Loren, the actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, the dancer Rudolf Nureyev and the basketball player LeBron James. Also linked to Atrani are the names of Gabriele D'Annunzio, of the poet Alfonso Gatto, who called it "the white city of long ago and of every day", and of Luciano De Crescenzo. Dwight Eisenhower stayed in Ravello during the Second World War, when the Amalfi Coast was the rear area of the Salerno landing.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Amalfi Coast

How far is the Amalfi Coast from Rome?

The Amalfi Coast is about 270 kilometers from Rome to Vietri sul Mare, just under three hours by car in normal conditions. By train you reach Salerno in a little over two hours with the high-speed services, and from there you need from 20 minutes to an hour and a half of bus or ferry depending on the town.

How many days do you need to visit the Amalfi Coast?

Three nights are the recommended minimum to visit the Amalfi Coast without chasing stops. The day trip from Rome or Naples delivers only the most crowded central hours in the most frequented towns, while whoever sleeps on the coast sees another face of the territory.

How much does a day on the Amalfi Coast cost?

For a day on the Amalfi Coast, besides the train from Rome to Salerno, the Costierasita bus ticket costs €10 for 24 hours. Among the admissions, the monumental complex of the Duomo of Amalfi costs €3, Villa Rufolo in Ravello €8, the Grotta dello Smeraldo €7 and the Roman villa of Minori €6 full price, €2 reduced.

Is the Amalfi Coast suitable for small children?

The Amalfi Coast is not a comfortable destination for very small children: stairs are everywhere, strollers are almost unusable in Positano and Atrani, and whoever has a child under three must use a child-carrier backpack. With kids from six years up the coast works very well instead.

Is the Amalfi Coast wheelchair accessible?

The verticality of the Amalfi Coast creates objective barriers, but some points work: the seafront of Maiori is flat and continuous, the most practicable in a wheelchair on the whole coast. The MAR of Positano declares an accessible route and the Grotta dello Smeraldo has an elevator from the Statale 163.

When to go to the Amalfi Coast?

From mid-April to the end of May is the best period for the Amalfi Coast: the broom is in bloom, the sea is cold but the trails are perfect and hotel prices are half those of August. Late September and the first half of October are the second recommended period, with the sea still warm.

Is Sorrento part of the Amalfi Coast?

No, Sorrento is not part of the Amalfi Coast: it belongs to the opposite side of the Sorrento peninsula, the one that looks onto the Gulf of Naples. The Amalfi Coast is the stretch of coast facing the Gulf of Salerno, between Positano to the west and Vietri sul Mare to the east.

Do you need a guide to visit the Amalfi Coast?

For the seaside part of the Amalfi Coast you don't need a guide, but for the Duomo of Amalfi, for Ravello and for reading the terraced landscape you do, and the difference shows. In Campania the accompanying of groups and the guided visit of sites are regulated activities and must be entrusted to qualified professionals.

Visiting the Amalfi Coast with a Guide or on Your Own

Legitimate question: do you need a guide on the Amalfi Coast? For the seaside part, no. For the Duomo of Amalfi, for Ravello and for reading the terraced landscape, yes, and the difference shows. In Campania the accompanying of groups and the guided visit of sites are regulated activities and must be entrusted to qualified professionals. Those who organize groups, corporate trips or private experiences can turn to the network of professionals of TourLeaderPro, which works on Rome and on Italy with authorized tour leaders and guides, or write directly from the TourLeaderPro contacts page for a tailor-made quote.

Those who travel alone and prefer to organize themselves will find serious material anyway. The English guide Amalfi Coast Complete Guide from ItalyPlanner goes into detail on towns, transport and costs with a practical approach, while the day trips in Italy section helps to understand which excursions really hold up as a single day and which don't. They are useful tools above all for those who travel with foreign friends or relatives and have to explain to them why the Amalfi Coast cannot be done in six hours.

Quick Questions About the Amalfi Coast

How far is the Amalfi Coast from Rome

About 270 kilometers to Vietri sul Mare, just under three hours by car in normal conditions. By train you reach Salerno in a little over two hours with the high-speed services, and from there you need from 20 minutes to an hour and a half of bus or ferry depending on the town.

How many days do you need to visit the Amalfi Coast

Three nights are the minimum to avoid chasing buses, four or five the right number. In one day you see one town, two at most if they are close, like Amalfi and Atrani or Maiori and Minori.

What is the best time to go to the Amalfi Coast

From mid-April to the end of May and from mid-September to mid-October. July and August have the warmest sea and everything else worse: traffic, lines, double prices and high temperatures.

How much does the bus ticket cost on the Amalfi Coast

The integrated Costierasita ticket costs €10 and is valid for 24 hours from the first validation on the whole SITA Sud network of the coast, including the urban shuttles of Positano. It is nominative and must be filled in with a pen before use.

Do the alternate license plates apply when driving on the Amalfi Coast

Yes, on the Statale 163 between Vietri sul Mare and Positano, from 10:00 to 18:00: on weekends and holidays from June 1 to July 31 and for all of October, every day from August 1 to September 30. On even-numbered days plates ending in an even digit may not circulate, and vice versa.

How much does it cost to enter the Duomo of Amalfi

The monumental complex with Chiostro del Paradiso, Basilica del Crocifisso, crypt and cathedral costs €3. Those who enter to attend Mass don't pay.

How much does Villa Rufolo in Ravello cost

€8 full price, €7 for groups of 15 people, €6 for over 65s and for children from five to 12 years old. Open every day from 9:00 to 20:00, last entry at 19:30, tickets only on site.

How much does the Grotta dello Smeraldo cost

€7 per person, with indicated hours from 10:00 to 16:00 and closure in case of rough sea. From the port of Amalfi the boat transfer costs about €10 round trip, grotto ticket excluded.

Can you swim on the Amalfi Coast

Yes, but the beaches are almost all pebble and often small. The widest and best equipped are at Maiori and Minori. The Spiaggia Grande of Positano is the most famous and the most expensive. Cetara and Erchie have clear water and fewer crowds.

Is the Amalfi Coast suitable for children

From six years up yes, under three it is tiring because of the stairs. Bring a child-carrier backpack instead of the stroller and prefer the wide beaches of Maiori and Minori.

How hard is the Sentiero degli Dei

About 7.5 kilometers, 638 meters of total elevation change, four hours of walking, hiking difficulty with some exposed stretches. It is walked from Bomerano toward Nocelle, with hiking shoes and at least two liters of water.

How do you get to the Sentiero degli Dei from Amalfi

With the SITA Sud bus for Agerola, Bomerano stop, or with the Travelmar road shuttle from Amalfi. The return from Positano is made by ferry or bus.

Are Positano and Amalfi the same thing

No. They are two distinct municipalities 11 kilometers from each other, with opposite characters: Amalfi is the historic center and the transport hub, Positano is the most photographed and most expensive vertical town of the Amalfi Coast.

Is Sorrento part of the Amalfi Coast

No. Sorrento is on the northern side of the peninsula, the one that looks onto the Gulf of Naples. The Amalfi Coast runs from Positano to Vietri sul Mare and faces the Gulf of Salerno.

How many municipalities are there on the Amalfi Coast

15 municipalities are part of the UNESCO site: Amalfi, Atrani, Cetara, Conca dei Marini, Furore, Maiori, Minori, Positano, Praiano, Ravello, Scala, Tramonti, Vietri sul Mare and the neighboring territories recognized in the 1997 inscription.

What is the smallest municipality of the Amalfi Coast

Atrani, which is also the smallest municipality in Italy by area, a little over two tenths of a square kilometer, with fewer than 900 inhabitants.

Where do you eat real colatura di alici

In Cetara, where the colatura di alici PDO is produced, recognized in October 2020. Look for it on spaghetti, without tomato and without cheese.

What is the sfusato amalfitano

It is the Costa d'Amalfi PGI lemon, recognized on July 4, 2001: a tapered fruit of about 100 grams, thick and aromatic peel, seedless pulp, cultivated by hand on the terraces under chestnut pergolas.

Can you visit the Amalfi Coast in a wheelchair

In part. The seafront of Maiori is the most practicable stretch, the lower center of Amalfi is flat, the MAR of Positano declares an accessible route, the Grotta dello Smeraldo has an elevator but the final transfer takes place by boat. It's best to phone every site in advance.

Do you need to book for the museums of the Amalfi Coast

For Villa Rufolo no, tickets are bought at the entrance. For the MAR of Positano you can buy online and the ticket office accepts only cards. For the Ravello Festival booking is essential.

Is it worth renting a boat on the Amalfi Coast

Half a day on a shared or private boat is the best investment of the vacation, because it is the only way to see the grottoes, the fjords and the Saracen towers from the point of view for which they were built. Choose it in the morning, when the sea is flattest.

Are there alternatives closer to Rome for the sea

Yes, and they hold up well in comparison for a weekend: the island of Ponza, the coast of the Circeo National Park, the coast of Terracina and, for those looking for archaeology a stone's throw from the capital, Ostia Antica.

How much does a day on the Amalfi Coast cost on average

With the day bus ticket at €10, two admissions between the Duomo of Amalfi and Villa Rufolo for €11 and a simple lunch, a full day of sightseeing stays under €50 per person, lodging excluded.

One Last Thing to Know

The Amalfi Coast is one of those places that photography has made more famous than it has made understandable. Whoever arrives looking for the postcard finds it, gets it in three hours, and goes home convinced of having seen a beautiful crowded panorama. Whoever instead takes the time to go up to Scala, to walk in the Valle delle Ferriere, to enter a paper mill in the Valle dei Mulini or to sit in Cetara while the lampare come back in, discovers that under the postcard there is a system of human work a thousand years old, which has produced a republic, a code of the sea, a paper, a lemon and a landscape. That system today is fragile. Go out of season, sleep there, buy from producers, and leave the car in Salerno.

Article written by the editorial team of TourLeaderPro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

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