Amalfi Coast

What the Amalfi Coast actually is

The Amalfi Coast is roughly fifty kilometres of near-vertical limestone dropping into the Tyrrhenian Sea south of Naples, with one road — the SS163 — carved along the face of it. Thirteen towns cling to that cliff between Positano in the west and Vietri sul Mare in the east. There is very little flat ground anywhere on it, and almost none of that flat ground is beach.

The geometry decides everything about a holiday here: how long it takes to get anywhere, what a room with a view costs, how many steps you climb with a suitcase, and whether the coast turns out to be a pleasure or a daily logistical problem. It is one of the most photographed coastlines in Europe and it is also one of the most physically demanding places to stay. Both of those are true, and the second one is usually left out of the brochure.

It suits couples, walkers, people who like small hotels and long dinners, and anyone whose idea of a good day is a boat, a plate of pasta and a village. It suits families with toddlers, heavy pushchairs and a need for a sandy beach considerably less well.

Getting there: Naples airport and the coast road

Flights land at Naples International (NAP), also called Capodichino, which sits about seven kilometres from the centre of Naples. It is the only realistic gateway; Rome is three hours further away and adds nothing.

Reckon on these times by road, doubled on an August Friday: Naples airport to Sorrento, one hour fifteen to one hour thirty. Naples to Positano, one hour forty-five to two and a half hours. Naples to Amalfi town, around two hours whichever way you approach. Ravello adds another twenty to twenty-five minutes of switchbacks above Amalfi.

The last stretch is the part worth understanding before you commit. From Meta di Sorrento eastwards the SS163 is a two-lane road on a cliff face with continuous hairpins, blind corners, buses that need the full width to turn, and no straight section anywhere. It is a genuinely beautiful drive and it makes a lot of passengers carsick. That is not a polite way of saying "winding" — people arrive grey and sit down for twenty minutes before they can look at the view. If you or your children are prone to motion sickness, take something before you leave the airport, sit in the front, keep the window open, and consider arriving by sea instead.

The sea option is real. From roughly April to late October, hydrofoils run from Naples to Sorrento in about thirty-five minutes and on to Positano and Amalfi. It is faster than the road in high season, far kinder on the stomach, and subject to two caveats: strict luggage allowances and cancellation in rough weather.

Now, our part in all of this, said plainly. Outside Turkey we quote accommodation only, through our partner agencies. Our own vehicles and drivers have operated in Turkey since 2016 and nowhere else, so we will not be meeting you at Naples and we do not drive that road. What we will do is make sure the transfer arranged locally — hotel car, shared shuttle or ferry ticket — is written into the offer with its price attached, so it is not a surprise on the day.

Positano, and the steps

Positano is a vertical amphitheatre of pastel houses stacked from the main road down to the water. One narrow one-way lane, the Viale Pasitea, loops through it; below a certain point the town is stairs only.

Almost every hotel here means steps with your luggage. Sometimes it is thirty from the road down to reception. Sometimes it is reception down to the room. Sometimes it is both. A number of the best-known small properties have no vehicle access at all: the car stops at the top of a lane and you walk the last fifty to a hundred and fifty steps while a porter takes the bags. From the upper town at Chiesa Nuova down to the main beach at Spiaggia Grande is several hundred steps, and it is the climb back at the end of the day, in August heat, that people underestimate.

This rules Positano out for some travellers, and it is better said here than discovered on arrival. If anyone in your party walks with a stick, has a knee or a heart condition, or is travelling with a baby in a pram, Positano is a hard town to enjoy. A small number of properties near the top of Viale Pasitea have a drop-off point and a lift down to the rooms. They exist, they are worth asking about specifically, and we will ask on your behalf and quote only those.

If Positano works for you, it is superb. There is a small orange bus that loops the town every half hour for a euro or two, the beaches are right there, and the evening — once the day-trippers have gone — belongs to whoever stayed.

Amalfi town

Amalfi is the flattest of the pretty towns and the most practical. It has a real piazza, the striped cathedral of Sant'Andrea at the top of a wide staircase, the ferry pier, and the bus hub for the whole coast. Behind it the Valle delle Ferriere climbs into a shaded valley of old paper mills.

For the same star rating it costs less than Positano. In exchange it is busier by day — coaches and ferries unload into that one piazza — and it empties in the evening, which is when it is at its best. For a first visit, or for anyone who wants to move around the coast without a car, Amalfi is usually the sensible base.

Ravello

Ravello sits 350 metres above the sea, reached by twenty-five minutes of switchbacks up from Amalfi. It is cooler, quieter and considerably more refined than the coast below: two garden villas, Rufolo and Cimbrone, a summer music season, and from the Terrazza dell'Infinito the best single view on this coast.

There is no beach and no sea access at all. Two or three nights in Ravello is a pleasure. A full week without a car is isolating — in the evening you eat in Ravello or you drive down.

The cheaper coast: Praiano, Maiori, Minori, Cetara

Praiano sits between Positano and Amalfi at thirty to forty per cent less money, with the same views and the same steps, plus the best sunsets on the coast and a tiny cove at Marina di Praia.

Maiori has the longest beach on the coast, a flat promenade and the largest supply of mid-range hotels. It is less pretty and it is where families end up, which is not a compromise anyone should be embarrassed about. Minori next door is smaller, sweeter and known for its pasta.

Cetara is a working anchovy port that produces colatura di alici, the amber anchovy sauce that gets on to menus across Italy. It is a real town with a fraction of the visitors. Vietri sul Mare, at the Salerno end, is the ceramics town, and the whole coast is tiled with its work.

Sorrento, which is not the Amalfi Coast

Sorrento is on the other side of the peninsula, facing Naples and Vesuvius. It is not on the Amalfi Coast, which is worth knowing before you book "Amalfi" and find yourself an hour's drive from Positano. Having said that, it is the right base for a great many people and we say so often.

The case for it: the town centre is flat. It has a railway — the Circumvesuviana reaches Pompeii in half an hour and Naples in about an hour. It has by far the biggest hotel supply on this stretch of coast, so there is real choice, and prices run thirty to forty per cent below Positano for the same standard. Ferries leave for Capri, Positano, Amalfi and Naples. The transfer from the airport is shorter and much less winding.

What you give up: Sorrento has no proper beach. The town sits on a tuff cliff and swimming means wooden platforms below at Marina Grande and Marina Piccola. It is busier with tour groups. And you look out at the Bay of Naples rather than the Amalfi cliffs, so the view you came for becomes a day trip. Salerno, further east, is cheaper still — a working city with a promenade, coastal ferries and a main-line station.

Hotel stock and what a budget buys

Expect small family-run four-stars, converted villas and monasteries, a handful of famous five-stars on the cliff, and very few large resorts. All-inclusive effectively does not exist here, so do not look for it. Rooms come room-only or with breakfast; half board is common in the smaller coastal hotels and is often good value, because dinner options in a village of four hundred people are limited.

In May or October a good four-star with a sea view starts around 120 EUR per person per night. In August the same room is routinely double. A sea-view double in a well-regarded four-star in Positano in high season runs 400 to 700 EUR a night for the room, and the cliff-edge names go a long way past that. Praiano, Maiori and Sorrento sit thirty to fifty per cent below Positano; Ravello is in between.

Eating out, a trattoria dinner for two with local wine is 55 to 80 EUR; a terrace with the Positano view is considerably more. Two sunbeds and an umbrella on a private lido cost 25 to 45 EUR a day in Positano and less further east.

Moving around: ferries first

In season the ferries are the sane way to travel this coast. Positano to Amalfi is twenty-five to thirty minutes on the water against an hour or more on the road. Sorrento to Positano is about forty minutes, Amalfi to Capri about an hour. They run frequently from April to late October, they are pleasant, and they are cancelled in rough sea often enough that you want a plan B.

The SITA Sud buses connect everything for a few euros. In July and August they are standing room, and you may watch two go past full before you get on one.

Driving yourself is a decision, not a default. The road is narrow, parking is scarce and expensive — garages in Positano and Amalfi run six to ten EUR an hour or forty to sixty a day — many hotels have no parking at all, and on the busiest summer days an alternating number-plate restriction applies to non-residents on the coast road. If you are not a confident driver, do not hire a car for the coast itself.

When to go

April and early May. Everything reopening, the hillsides green, wisteria over the terraces, the sea still cold. Excellent for walking, not for swimming.

Late May and June. The best combination on this coast: warm, long light, swimmable from mid-June, prices below peak and the road not yet solid.

July and August. Hot, extremely busy and at the top of the price range. August is when Italy itself is on holiday, so the road, the ferries and the lidos are all at capacity at once.

September. Excellent. The sea is at its warmest all year and the crowds thin after the first week.

October. Quieter and cheaper, still swimmable early in the month, with rain becoming a genuine possibility and the closures beginning at the end.

November to March. The coast closes, and that is not a figure of speech. A large share of hotels in Positano, Praiano and Ravello shut from early November until Easter, many restaurants go with them, and the ferries stop. Amalfi keeps something open; Sorrento stays open properly. If you want this coast in winter, base yourself in Sorrento or Salerno and accept that Positano will be shuttered, beautiful and empty.

Day trips worth the effort

Capri. Forty minutes by ferry from Positano, twenty-five from Sorrento. Take the first boat. By eleven in the morning in August, Marina Grande is a scrum, the funicular queue is long, and the Blue Grotto is either a two-hour wait or closed by swell. Anacapri, the chairlift up Monte Solaro and Villa San Michele are calmer than Capri town on any day.

Pompeii. Half an hour by train from Sorrento, a half day at minimum, and go early because there is no shade at all. Herculaneum is smaller, better preserved and far less crowded.

Ravello. Worth a day even if you sleep elsewhere; the two villas and the Cimbrone terrace are the best hour on the coast.

The Path of the Gods. Bomerano to Nocelle above Positano, about three hours and mostly downhill in that direction, followed by roughly 1,700 steps into Positano unless you catch the bus.

Paestum. Three Greek temples south of Salerno, better preserved than most in Greece and comparatively empty.

Who should skip the Amalfi Coast

Anyone whose holiday is a big resort with a pool complex, a kids club and a sandy beach you walk to. That does not exist here. The beaches are small, dark pebble and mostly paid, and the hotels are small. Puglia, Sardinia or the Turkish coast do that far better for far less money.

Anyone with a real mobility limit, at least in Positano and Ravello. Not because the coast is hostile but because it is built on a slope. Tell us plainly and we will steer you to Sorrento, Maiori or a short list of genuinely step-free properties.

Anyone travelling on a tight budget in July or August. High season here is expensive in a way that is hard to work around, and the same region is far more enjoyable from Salerno or the Sorrentine peninsula.

And anyone who suffers badly in a car, unless you arrive by sea. Two hours of hairpins each way is otherwise the price of admission.

Getting a real price

Rates here move more between May and August than almost anywhere in Italy, and two hotels of the same category a hundred metres apart can differ by half depending on which way the room faces and how many steps stand between it and the road.

Tell us your dates, how many of you there are, whether steps are a problem, and whether the view or the swimming matters more. A consultant will come back within one working day with two or three properties that genuinely fit, the reasoning for each, and an honest opinion on which town you should actually be in. The quote is free, it commits you to nothing, and there is no payment on this site — the partner agency that operates the booking issues your voucher and is named in the offer before you decide.