Cruise
The Amalfi Coast from the sea, and the road you avoid
The road along the Amalfi Coast is famous, and so are its traffic jams. Seen from the sea, the coast is at its most spectacular: towns of pastel houses stacked up the cliffs, terraces of lemon trees, and a medieval maritime republic that once rivalled Venice.
By Walter Pellow2 November 20264 min read
The Amalfi Coast runs along the southern side of the Sorrento peninsula, south of Naples, where the mountains of the Monti Lattari drop almost vertically into the Tyrrhenian Sea. There is very little flat land. The towns cling to the cliffs and fill the narrow ravines where streams run down to the sea, their houses stacked one above another in shades of white, pink and ochre, linked by steps and stairways rather than streets. On the terraces above them grow lemons, vines and olives, held up by stone walls built over centuries.
It is one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is also, in summer, extremely crowded.
The road
The Amalfi Drive, the coast road, was built in the nineteenth century, and it is one of the most famous roads in Europe. It runs for about fifty kilometres along the cliffs between Positano and Vietri sul Mare, carved into the rock, with hairpin bends, sheer drops and views that make it hard to keep your eyes on the road. It is very narrow, too narrow in many places for two buses to pass, and in summer the traffic of coaches, cars, buses and scooters can move at a walking pace, with long queues into and out of every town.
There are ways round it. Ferries and boats run between the coastal towns from spring to autumn, and they are often quicker than the road, as well as more pleasant. And for those who arrive by cruise ship, the coast is seen first and best from the water.
Seen from the sea, the coast is at its most spectacular.
Amalfi and its republic
The town of Amalfi gave the coast its name. In the tenth and eleventh centuries it was the capital of one of the maritime republics of Italy, a sea power whose ships traded across the Mediterranean with Byzantium, the Arab world and the crusader states, and whose maritime laws, the Tavola Amalfitana, were followed far beyond its own shores. Its power was broken by the Normans and the rival republic of Pisa, and a storm in the fourteenth century destroyed much of the lower town.
What remains is a small, lovely town around a central square, dominated by its cathedral, which stands at the top of a long flight of steps, its striped facade and bronze doors cast in Constantinople. The town is also known for its paper, made here by hand since the Middle Ages, and for limoncello, the lemon liqueur made from the large, fragrant lemons of the coast.
Positano and Ravello
Positano, to the west, is the most photographed town on the coast, a steep amphitheatre of pastel houses above a small beach. It was a poor fishing village until the mid-twentieth century, when writers and artists discovered it. Ravello, high in the hills above Amalfi, is quieter, a town of gardens and villas looking down on the sea. Villa Rufolo, whose garden is said to have inspired Wagner, and Villa Cimbrone, with its Terrace of Infinity, have some of the finest views on the coast. Ravello holds a music festival each summer.
Salerno, at the eastern end of the coast, is a larger city with a long seafront and a cathedral, and it was home to the medieval medical school, one of the first in Europe.
For walkers, the coast has another way of seeing it: the Path of the Gods, the Sentiero degli Dei, which runs high along the mountainside above Positano, with the whole coast spread out below. And across the bay, Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum, buried by Vesuvius in AD 79, are within reach of most calls in the region.
The sailings
Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines' Cultural Mediterranean with the Amalfi Coast, sixteen nights, sails from Liverpool in September and calls at Málaga, Cartagena, Olbia in Sardinia, Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Salerno, Cagliari and Lisbon.
Fred. Olsen's Italian Riviera & Amalfi Coast, eighteen nights, sails from Liverpool in April, with calls at Lisbon, Cagliari, the Amalfi Coast, Salerno, Gaeta, Civitavecchia for Rome, La Spezia, Savona, Cartagena and Cádiz.
The coast is at its best in spring and autumn, in April, May, September and October, when it is warm enough to sit outside but less crowded than in summer. In winter, many hotels and restaurants close, but the towns are at their quietest and most themselves.
By Walter Pellow, the name Atlas & Passage’s editorial team writes under. Prices and dates in the trips below come from the operators and can change.
