Capri and the Amalfi Coast

Naples is the gateway. The coast is reached by road — an hour and a half to Positano in good conditions, longer in season — or by private boat transfer from Naples or Sorrento, which is often faster and always more pleasant. Capri is reached only by sea.

Helicopter transfer operates to licensed sites on the coast and to Capri. Luggage matters here: narrow roads, steep steps and small boats all argue for travelling lighter than usual.

Villas along the coast and on Capri, cliffside hotels with terraces, and converted historic properties in Ravello. Positano is the most convenient for beach and restaurants; Ravello is calmer, cooler and higher; Capri is its own world and best for at least two nights rather than a day trip.

Whatever the property, ask how many steps sit between the car and the bed. It is the single most consequential detail on this coast.

Day boats — traditional gozzi and modern tenders alike — run to Capri, along the coast, and to the coves that have no road. Charter weeks use the coast alongside the Aeolian islands and Sicily.

Swimming here is off the boat rather than off a beach: the shoreline is stony and small, and the water is deep almost immediately.

The coast eats extremely well: cliffside rooms with reputations and views, beach clubs serving lunch on the water, and family places up the hill where the pasta is better and the view is worse.

Reservations at the well-known rooms in July and August are requested far ahead. Private dining in villas and hotel terraces is a straightforward alternative for groups.

Evenings are long dinners, a walk, and a drink on a terrace. Capri’s piazzetta is the exception — genuinely social late — and Positano has a couple of late rooms in season. This is not a club coast.

Ravello and Positano are heavily requested for weddings, with historic villas, cliffside hotels and terraces carrying most events. Capacity is genuinely limited by geography — access, parking and step counts constrain guest numbers more than budgets do.

Italian civil formalities for foreign nationals require documentation prepared in advance; many couples hold the legal ceremony at home. Guest movement between accommodation and venue is the central logistical problem on this coast, and boats often solve it.

Ravello’s villa gardens and its summer music festival, the Path of the Gods above the coast, Pompeii and Herculaneum within reach, lemon groves and ceramics in the villages, and Naples itself for a day of food and art that most visitors skip.