One hundred and fifty hairpin turns, a road barely wider than the car, sheer cliffs dropping into ultramarine sea — the Amalfi Coast drive is either the most terrifying thing you'll ever do or the most beautiful, and likely both.
The SS163 — the Amalfi Drive — is 40 kilometres of controlled lunacy. Carved into the cliffs of the Sorrentine Peninsula sometime in the 1830s, it predates the automobile by sixty years and was designed for mule carts. It has not been significantly widened since. In summer, it carries a continuous stream of tourist coaches, delivery trucks, Italian hatchbacks, and motor scooters, all moving at speeds that seem mathematically impossible given the geometry.
I drove it in a rented Fiat 500 on a Tuesday in June, heading west from Salerno towards Positano. I would do it again immediately.
Amalfi itself sits at the base of a steep gorge, its cathedral's mosaic facade catching the afternoon sun like a signal mirror. The town was once a maritime republic — a genuine rival to Venice and Genoa — and the Arsenale della Repubblica, where its famous war galleys were built, still stands beside the harbour. The cloister of the cathedral is one of the most serene spaces in Italy: Moorish arches, lemon trees, the sound of a fountain.
Positano is the photograph: pastel buildings cascading down a cliff to a black sand beach, bougainvillea everywhere, boats bobbing in the harbour. It is genuinely, absurdly beautiful. It is also almost impossibly crowded in July and August, and the steps down from the road to the beach — there are hundreds of them — must be climbed again after every swim. Arrive in May or September.
Ravello, above the coast road on a ridge 350 metres above the sea, is the alternative to the crowds below. The gardens of Villa Rufolo (where Wagner found inspiration for Parsifal) look directly out over the Tyrrhenian Sea from a height that makes your stomach drop. The annual Ravello Festival fills the garden with classical music through the summer months.
The water along the Amalfi Coast is the colour that the word "azure" was invented to describe. Below the cliffs, tiny beaches accessible only by boat shelter in rocky coves — boat tours from Amalfi and Positano will take you to them. The Grotta dello Smeraldo, a sea cave lit by underwater light, turns the water the colour of an emerald held to sunlight.
Swimming from the rocks below Conca dei Marini, watching fishing boats return to harbour in the early evening with the coast rising above you, is one of the lasting sensory memories of the Mediterranean.
Lemon is everywhere. The Sfusato Amalfitano — the local variety, enormous and intensely fragrant — grows in terraced groves above every town. Limoncello made from these lemons is a different product entirely from the industrial version. The local pasta is scialatielli, a short thick noodle served with seafood. The mozzarella comes from buffalo farms in the plains behind Salerno and is eaten still warm, as it should be.
Driving advice: Go early morning (before 9am) or late evening (after 7pm) if you want any kind of flow. Hire a driver if heights bother you — the drops are not metaphorical. Park in Amalfi and take water taxis to the smaller towns when possible.
The road demands complete attention, which means you see the sea in glimpses — a flash of blue between turns, a sweep of cliff and sky through a gap in the rock. Perhaps this is the right way to see something so beautiful: in moments, between the necessary business of staying alive.
Wanderlust