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The Amalfi Coast
A travel guide to Amalfi, Positano, Praiano, Ravello, and Sorrento along Italy's famous Amalfi Drive
The Amalfi Coast is one of Europe's great scenic wonders. The impossibly winding Amalfi Drive road that follows it high up on the cliffside—often cantilevered over empty space—is a marvel of engineering and one of the world's best white-knuckle thrill rides outside of an amusement park.
This 50km (30 mile) stretch of crinkly coastline between Sorrento and Salerno offers breathtaking scenery as you make your torturous, winding way from one gorgeous sea cove into the next, some craggy inlets so sheer and deep they almost qualify as mini-fjords. High, tree-swathed cliffs on your left plunge tumultuously into the azure waters below you on the right, the inlets and headlands punctuated by scraps of beaches, terraced groves of giant lemons, and some of the most inviting, relaxing, and beautiful small towns in Italy.
The bougainvillea-crowned and jasmine-scented villages of the Amalfi Coast range from pricey resort town to old-fashioned fishing hamlet. Among the some dozen communities strung along the coast is a trinity of required stops: posh Positano, historic Amalfi, and garden-filled Ravello. In between you'll find everything from the Emerald Grotto sea cave to the ceramics of Vietri sul Mare.
Many people on a daytrip take the bus from Sorrento to Amalfi then turn around to come back, but the most spectacular, least-developed sections of the coast lie east of Amalfi en route to Salerno.
Secret Hotels of the Amalfi Coast & Capri - A few years ago for Budget Travel magazine, I scoured the fishing towns of the Amalfi Drive and the gorgeous nearby island of Capri to find and review a passle of hotels that charge two-star prices for million-dollar accommodations. I came up with nine outstanding hotels and B&Bs everywhere from the fabled coastal resorts of Amalfi and Positano to the vacation hotspots of Capri and Sorrento to smaller villages like Praiano and Anacapri. 
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This article was last updated in April 2008. All information was accurate at the time.
Copyright © 1998–2008 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.
