AMALFI COAST · ITALY
Cliff towns, lemon groves, blue water all the way down.
The painted villages, the Path of the Gods, the boat day from Sorrento, the cathedral at Amalfi, the gardens above Ravello, and the Roman city half a day inland. The Amalfi visitor experience, broken down by what's worth booking.
Only on this coast
What only this coast can give you.
Italy has plenty of coastline — eight thousand kilometres of it. Three of the experiences here exist nowhere else on it. The boat day, the buried city and the lemons. Plan the rest of the trip around the day you book for each.
Cliffs from the water
Sail the cliff coast
From the road you see the towns. From a boat you finally see the coast. Furore is a fjord with a beach under a road bridge. Conca dei Marini's grottoes glow green from below. The painted villages stack the cliffs like staircases. None of this looks the same from above — the boat is how locals see their own coast.
- 1 Naples: Boat Tour to Positano, Amalfi and Ravello
- 2 From Sorrento/Nerano: Amalfi and Positano Boat Tour
- 3 Sorrento: Coast and Capri Boat Trip with Limoncello Tasting
The dead city
Walk Pompeii's streets
Vesuvius buried Pompeii in 79 AD and a layer of ash sealed it in time. Two thousand years later you walk the ruts where chariot wheels dug the basalt, look into bakeries with bread still on the counter, and meet the plaster casts of people in the positions they died in. Half a day from the coast. The only fully intact Roman city anywhere.
- 1 From Rome: Pompeii, Amalfi Coast, and Sorrento Day Trip
- 2 From Rome: Pompeii, Amalfi Coast and Positano Day Trip
- 3 Pompeii, Amalfi Coast and Positano Day Trip from Rome
Sfusato Amalfitano
Lemons the size of grapefruits
The lemons here are a protected variety — sfusato amalfitano, long and knobbly, thick perfumed rind, sweet pulp. They grow on cliff-cut terraces above Minori and Maiori, watered from spring run-off, picked twice a year. A morning with a farmer ends with limoncello pressed that hour, served cold. The flavour does not exist outside this fifty-kilometre strip.
- 1 Maiori: Amalfi Coast Path of Lemons Day Trip with Tastings
- 2 Amalfi: Vertical Lemon Farm Tour, Tastings, and Rural Museum
- 3 Amalfi Coast Small Group Day Boat Tour with Limoncello Onboard
First day on the coast
If you only book one day, book this one.
Three towns, one boat, the cliff drive and lunch with a view. The day-trip that anchors most first visits and rarely disappoints — runs out of every base town along the coast.
Most popular
The Amalfi Coast's Most Popular Tours
Positano, Amalfi town, Sorrento, the boat day, Pompeii, Capri. The trips that most travellers come specifically to do.
By town
Pick a stop along the coast.
Each town is its own day. Positano for the cliff staircases. Amalfi for the cathedral and the paper mills. Sorrento for the trains and the ferries. Ravello for the gardens up top. Plus Capri across the water and Pompeii inland.
By the way you'll travel
Or pick how you want to see it.
By boat if you want the cliff towns from the water. By private driver if you want the SS163 without doing the parking. By cooking class if you want to come home with the recipe. By the lemon farm if you want the limoncello straight from the press.
West to east, all 50 km
Down the coast, in order.
The SS163 from Sorrento to Salerno is fifty kilometres of cliff road. The towns sit along it like beads on a string — some on the water, some up the hill. Knowing the geography helps you pick where to base. Click any stop to see what's worth booking there.
Hands in the dough
Cook with a nonna.
Hand-rolled pasta, pizza in a wood-fired oven, ricotta strained from this morning's milk. Most Amalfi cooking classes are in farmhouse kitchens above the cliffs — three or four hours, you cook the lunch, you eat the lunch. Three classes worth giving up an afternoon for.
Sorrento as a base
If you're staying in Sorrento.
Sorrento is the easiest place to base for the coast — the Circumvesuviana train runs from Naples airport, the ferries leave every hour for Capri and Positano, and a private driver to Amalfi is under an hour. Three day-trips that explain why most first-time visitors end up here.
Doing the coast in a day
If you're coming in from Rome or Naples.
The coast is doable in a day if you're tight on time — Rome 2.5 hours each way, Naples 1.5. The good operators handle the long-distance driving, the SS163 hairpins, the parking and the lunch reservations. Three combinations that get the most into a single day.
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