The Amalfi Coast, from Vesuvius to Ravello

A road above the sea

The Amalfi Coast is not first and foremost a coast of beaches. It is the southern flank of the Lattari Mountains, which drops almost sheer into the sea. The Amalfitana, cut into the cliffs between 1832 and 1850, winds for some fifty kilometres above the water. Thirteen towns cling to the mountainside, with their terraced lemon groves. Unesco added the coast to the World Heritage list in 1997.

Here, you park the car more often than you drive it. At Atrani, the road runs on arches above the white houses. Higher up, the Path of the Gods links Bomerano, a hamlet of Agerola, with Nocelle, above Positano: about 8 kilometres and three to four hours on foot, with the sea below.

On the Naples side, the loop takes in Herculaneum, Pompeii and the crater of Vesuvius.

In 1863, Giuseppe Fiorelli had the idea of pouring plaster into the hollows left by the victims’ bodies. Many of the frescoes and mosaics, the Alexander Mosaic among them, are in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

Herculaneum, closer to the crater, was buried by searing pyroclastic flows under some twenty metres of material. The wood there turned to charcoal without vanishing: beams, doors, entire upper storeys. In the boat sheds, excavators found more than three hundred skeletons, people who had no doubt hoped to escape by sea.

Amalfi and Ravello

Almost always independent from 839 until the Norman conquest of 1073, Amalfi traded with Byzantium and Egypt. In 1208, Cardinal Pietro Capuano brought the relics of St Andrew back from Constantinople; they are kept in the crypt of the Duomo. Next door, the Cloister of Paradise, built from 1266 onwards, interlaces its arches in the Arab manner. Higher up, in the Valley of the Mills, they made a rag paper, bambagina.

Some 350 metres above the sea, Ravello welcomed Richard Wagner in 1880. In the gardens of the Villa Rufolo, he believed he had found Klingsor’s magic garden in Parsifal. Since 1953, concerts have been held there every summer. The gardens of the Villa Cimbrone, bought in 1904 by an Englishman, Ernest Beckett, end on the Terrace of Infinity, lined with marble busts above the void.

What not to miss

1. 1The crater of VesuviusAbout two hours there and back, and a 170-metre climb to the rim of the crater.
2. 2The villa at OplontisA Roman villa with remarkably well-preserved frescoes, attributed, though not with certainty, to Poppaea, Nero’s wife.
3. 3SorrentoTorquato Tasso’s birthplace, set on its cliff of tuff facing Vesuvius.
4. 4The Bay of IerantoA bay that once housed a quarry, given back to nature, 45 minutes on foot from Nerano, near the headland where the ancients placed the Sirens.
5. 5PositanoA village of houses tumbling down to the beach, made famous by John Steinbeck in 1953.
6. 6The Fiordo di FuroreA narrow gorge spanned by the Amalfitana, where Rossellini filmed with Anna Magnani.

The Amalfi Coast in pictures

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The Terrace of Infinity at the Villa Cimbrone, in Ravello: marble busts above the void.

The coast’s table

On the coast, everything starts with the lemon. The sfusato amalfitano, long and pointed, grows on terraces, under pergolas roofed with straw mats; Sorrento has its own lemon, the Sorrento oval. Between them they make limoncello and scent the sfogliatella Santa Rosa, born, so tradition has it, in a convent at Conca dei Marini.

At Cetara, colatura di alici is drawn off: the juice of salted anchovies, an heir to Roman garum, now protected by a designation of origin. Amalfi’s scialatielli are served with seafood. Towards Naples, you find Gragnano pasta, the Lacryma Christi of Vesuvius and pizza.