Amalfi Coast: Italy's Most Dramatic Coastal Drive
The SS163 Amalfitana hugs the cliffs of the Sorrentine Peninsula for 50 kilometres, passing through villages of pastel-coloured houses stacked above the Tyrrhenian Sea — one of the most beautiful coastal roads in the world.
The Amalfi Coast is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Italy's most visited destinations — a 50-kilometre stretch of coastline between Positano and Vietri sul Mare where the mountains of the Sorrentine Peninsula drop almost vertically into the Tyrrhenian Sea, and the villages that cling to the cliffs between them are among the most beautiful in Italy.
Positano is the most glamorous of the Amalfi towns — a cascade of pastel houses tumbling down a cliff to a small beach, its narrow streets lined with boutiques selling hand-painted ceramics and lemon-print linen. It is also the most expensive and the most photographed, and in July and August the main street becomes a slow-moving queue of tourists. The best way to experience Positano is to stay for at least two nights and explore it in the early morning and evening, when the day-trippers have gone.
Amalfi itself, the town that gives the coast its name, was a maritime republic of considerable power in the 9th and 10th centuries, and its cathedral — the Duomo di Sant'Andrea, with its striped facade and Arab-Norman cloister — is one of the finest in southern Italy. The town is more workaday than Positano, with a proper piazza and a paper-making tradition that dates back to the 13th century.
Ravello, perched 350 metres above the sea on a ridge between Amalfi and Minori, is the most refined of the Amalfi towns — a place of medieval churches, aristocratic villas, and gardens that hang over the coast. The Villa Rufolo, whose gardens inspired Wagner's Parsifal, and the Villa Cimbrone, with its Terrace of Infinity overlooking the sea, are two of the finest gardens in Italy.
The Path of the Gods — the Sentiero degli Dei — is a four-hour walk along the ridge above the coast between Bomerano and Positano, with views over the entire Amalfi Coast and the islands of Li Galli. It is the finest walk on the coast and one of the best in Italy, and the combination of the views, the wildflowers, and the descent into Positano at the end makes it a genuinely memorable day.
The lemons of the Amalfi Coast — the sfusato amalfitano, a variety that can grow to the size of a small melon — are the finest in Italy, and the limoncello made from them is a different product entirely from the industrial version sold elsewhere. Every restaurant on the coast makes its own, and the ritual of a small glass of limoncello at the end of a meal, looking out over the sea, is one of the great pleasures of the Italian south.
The practical challenge of the Amalfi Coast is the traffic. The SS163 is a single-lane road in many places, and in summer the combination of tourist cars, buses, and delivery vehicles creates jams that can add hours to short journeys. The best solution is to leave the car in Sorrento or Salerno and use the ferry and bus services that connect the towns — the ferry between Positano, Amalfi, and Ravello is the most pleasant way to travel the coast, and the view from the water is better than any road view.
