The Amalfi Boast

Few places can match the swagger and flash of the Amalfi Coast; the stretch of the Costiera between Positano, Amalfi and Ravello boasts some of the finest hotels and most spectacular hiking and boating in Italy.

Folks around here are a proud bunch. It goes way back (as these things often do in Italy), to when the Duchy of Amalfi was an independent maritime republic, from the 7th to the 11th Centuries. That’s half a millennium of independence to crow about—at a time when pirates, marauders and all-conquering barbarian hordes were more common in the Mediterranean than hot meals.

These days the battle lines are drawn somewhat differently: the face-off is between Amalfi’s all-conquering hotels. Bragging-rights are hotly contested, with the ever-classy Le Sirenuse in Positano and the impeccably stylish Hotel Caruso in Ravello among the top contenders. Hotels aside, the Coast is traversed by breathtaking hiking trails—in addition to the popular Pathway of the Gods with its grandiloquent views, there is an entire mountain range waiting to be discovered in the Ferriere Nature Reserve above Ravello. And if walking ain’t your thing then our friends the lovely Lucias of Lucibello can arrange all manner of boating extravaganzas up and down the Costiera on their Positano fleet—a worthy successor to the Amalfitan maritime ships of old.

So I’m going to lay it on thick here and toot Amalfi’s horn: for swank and swagger it’s the Italian Coast with the Most.

Rudston has just returned from more research in Italy, but has yet to find a spot that can knock Amalfi down from its pedestal.