The Amalfi Coast

Between 15 June and 30 September the Amalfi Coast decides who may drive on it at weekends by the last digit of the number plate: odd on odd dates, even on even, and the same again in Easter week. An odd plate on an even Saturday stays where it is parked. The road is the SS163, finished in 1852 and known as the road of 1,000 bends, and it runs about 40 km from Vietri sul Mare to Positano, along the cliffs and round the gorges. Landslides and repairs close it when they please, and the hour and a quarter from Naples airport to Positano holds only in light traffic.

Come in May, June or September, when it is around 26°C by day and dry. August and the week around Easter are the coast at its most packed. From November to Easter it rains, many hotels and restaurants shut, and nobody rows into the Emerald Grotto.

Positano is the best-known town, pastel houses stacked up from Spiaggia Grande, and the busiest and dearest place to stay; off the beachside walk it is almost all steps. The stretch from Praiano towards Amalfi is cheaper and far less crowded than either big town, and the one to pick for peace. Praiano's beach, La Gavitella, is rocks at the bottom of more than 350 steps, each of them to be climbed again after the swim. Amalfi is a working town wedged between mountain and sea. Its main street is jammed with visitors, and the remedy is a block back, where the medieval alleys and stairways begin. Ravello is for villa gardens and the view down the coast, from 350 metres up and clear of the road's traffic.

The sea is the coast's other road. Boats run from Positano towards Amalfi, past the gorge at Furore, and out to the Li Galli islands for two hours at sunset; Da Adolfo, on Laurito beach, can be reached only by the restaurant's own boat from Positano's jetty, and serves lunch only. On foot, the Path of the Gods runs about 7.8 km from Bomerano to Nocelle, in two or three hours depending on who is timing it. The hourly SITA bus climbs from Amalfi to Ravello in half an hour or so, for the garden at Villa Rufolo that Wagner drew on for Parsifal. And from Amalfi a path goes over the hill and down into Atrani, a fishing village the coast road does not stop for: it passes overhead, on a viaduct.