Anna King Shahab and family find peace and perfect pasta in some of the Amalfi Coast's less touristy areas
A 50km stretch of villages wedged between sea and mountain, connected by a perilous zig-zag of roads better designed for Vespas than the burden of buses that prevail today – Italy's Amalfi Coast is a tourist hotspot. The time we spent there was not in peak season, yet the coast was still bustling with local and international visitors, packing those buses like sardines. Happily, we discovered that with a little research and a selective approach to fitting in "the sights" we were able to blend in and live like locals for eight days while still exploring enough of the coast to satisfy our curiosity.
Gelato girls. Photo / Anna King Shahab
Base camp
Getting around is not easy, despite what you may hear – yes, there's a ferry and bus network that means you can travel up and down the coast and to inland villages and sights relatively inexpensively, but the bus travel (or any travel by road) is seriously slow-going, and weather frequently disrupts the ferry schedule.
Rather than moving from place to place often, we were happy with our decision to pick two bases at either end of the coast – we opted for places off the main tourist trail so we could get away from the crowds.
Ricotta with anchovies Cetara. Photo / Anna King Shahab
Cetara
Knowing it would be after dark when we arrived from a nine-hour train journey from Sicily to Salerno – the Amalfi Coast's eastern boundary and biggest city – we'd booked a bed and breakfast in Cetara, and our host, Gaspare, collected us, and more importantly our stupidly bulky luggage, from the nearby bus stop. Cetara is a small fishing village, and we loved that it remained sleepy during the day, coming alive after dark as a mix of (mostly) locals and visitors filled the restaurants, spilling out onto the cobbled footpaths, and wandered the narrow streets to the pretty, sheltered harbour.
We gorged on woodfired pizza from takeaway joint Cos 'e Pazz, and fell in love with the super-fresh seafood and pasta, and friendly, smart service at Punto e Pasta – a good pick if you're keen on sampling the ultra-fresh local seafood hauled in each morning at the harbour, a stone's throw away. Local octopus, anchovies, sardines and tuna are renowned, plus look for dishes featuring colatura di alici – Cetara's famous anchovy sauce – much like Asian fish sauce, it's used sparingly to amp umami, such as in a wonderful pasta dish we enjoyed at Punto e Pasta, – scialatielli (an Amalfi original pasta shape) with anchovies, almonds and fennel.
Evening aperitif at Bar Santa Rosa, Conca. Photo / Anna King Shahab
Our Cetara days were spent lounging on the beach – both Spaggia del Lanio, reached by path down from Cetara's tower, and at charming Erchie, a 15-minute walk away and only sparsely populated with retired, kiln-baked locals sensibly attired in aqua shoes. Amalfi beaches range from small-to-large pebbly, with wonderfully clear water.
We loved breakfasts on the rooftop terrace with our hosts Gaspare and Clelia. The couple has converted Gaspare's cliff-climbing family home into B&B units with views across the narrow valley and down to the harbour. We particularly loved their meaty, homegrown beefsteak tomatoes served at breakfast, and hearing the couple talk about how local families such as theirs still produce many of their own supplies: from olive oil to limoncello (the secret to Gaspare's family limoncello recipe is using lemons that are still mostly green, he tells us). Stay: B & B Cetara, Corso Federici 84, 84010 Cetara.
Our next stop, to enable us to explore some of the western end of the coast, was Conca dei Marini, and we were glad we'd booked a pickup by our host, Stani. A history buff, he fed us titbits about the local area as we wound our way up and down through villages including Maiori, Minori and Amalfi, and finally up and up to the hillside of the headland of Conca dei Marini. It was a hike with our bags from the road to our stay, but the resulting views from its rooftop terrace were totally worth the sore hamstrings – all indigo sea, denim sky and pretty, staggered villages as far as the eye could see.
Little coves of Amalfi. Photo / Anna King Shahab
The stone steps that passed beside our villa, Stani explained as he presented us with a welcoming gift of pretty Neapolitan biscuits, begin at the beach below and continue up for five steep kilometres to the town of Agerola. Traditionally, the fishing folk lived and worked at the bottom of these steps, the farming folk at the top – and they all got terribly fit traipsing up and down to trade with each other.
Conca draws lots of daytrippers for Grotto dello Smeraldo – a seawater cave in which refracted sunlight creates a luminous emerald glow. More than that I can't tell you because we didn't "do" the grotto – the times we could force ourselves away from the calming rooftop view we spent lazing and swimming at the beach (signposting isn't great: look for the bus stop by Hotel Belvedere and take the steps down from there), eating, or both simultaneously.
Our local store was the size of an Auckland superette yet boasted a deli counter and fresh baked bread, so we stocked up on beach-picnic delights like fresh ricotta, pistachio-flecked mortadella, lush tomatoes, and ciabatta. On Spaggia Grande beach itself was the unassuming, salt-bleached restaurant La Tonarella, where Jackie Kennedy Onassis and her children liked to lunch between dips and rockpool explorations during their summer vacation in 1962 – spaghetti with fried tender zucchini and bacon was Jackie's favourite and is still on the menu. Pomegranates dangling low over stone walls offered a refreshing break from trekking up steps as the sun began to set on beach days.
La Tonnarella, a favourite with Jackie O. Photo / Anna King Shahab
Bookending the sunny part of the day were visits to Santa Bar Rosa, a basic little spot beside the old Santa Rosa Monastery (now a super-luxe hotel), with tables on the footpath gazing down over the neighbour's impressive vegetable gardens and citrus groves to the sea. We'd breakfast on espresso, the local cream-filled seashell-shaped pastry sfogliatella (invented at the adjacent monastery, it's said), and gelato (perfectly acceptable for breakfast here, don't be shy). Then we'd call in again post-beach for an aperitif of Aperol Spritz or local chilled white wine (served with free bar snacks) and more gelato.
La Bonta Conca. Photo / Anna King Shahab
These perfect days closed with dinner at La Bonta da Conca, recommended to us by Stani. Chef Fiore cooks classic Amalfi-style cuisine; order anything from the sea as it's seriously fresh, and perfectly prepared – we especially loved a platter of grilled calamari, swordfish, tuna and prawns, and a seasonal type of spotted squid stuffed with a richly savoury mix that included the squid heads and breadcrumbs. A digestif of housemade aged grappa or limoncello perfectly capped off the nights. Stay: La Casa del Piennolo, Via Grado II, 84010 Conca dei Marini.
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Salerno
Our final stop on the Coast was a last-minute decision, enabling us to relax for a night before journeying onwards. We had learned by that stage that for every segment of travel on this winding coast, it's a good idea to allow a break to regather. Again, we picked a goodie – despite the fact online forums tend to overlook Salerno, being a less quaint option, we found it to be lively – the handsome architecture of the centro storico (historic quarter) bustling from sunset till late into the evening, with plenty of interesting places to shop, eat and drink. Our hotel was in a retro-cool 1960s building on the waterfront, with a bar downstairs staffed by some of the friendliest people we had met on our whole trip, serving nibbles, excellent Aperol spritzes and, come the next morning, that ubiquitous Italian breakfast of espresso shots (fresh orange juices for the kids) and pastries at the bar. Refreshed and sated, we undertook the mere two minutes to walk to the station, hoisted our bags onto the fast train, and set out for Rome. Stay: La Madegra Seasuite, Piazza della Concordia 38, 84123 Salerno [END PRINT CUT]
Making Friends in Amalfi. Photo / Anna King Shahab
Amalfi Coast tips
Getting around: Buses and ferry services are comprehensive however be warned that buses are typically packed (even out of season), especially on high-demand routes like Amalfi-Ravello, and timetables can't be relied on. Bus tickets must be bought ahead from newsagents - ask them for help if you're not sure what type of ticket to buy. Taxis aren't easy to come by outside of the main tourist towns. Luggage: Wherever you stay on the Amalfi Coast you're likely to encounter steps. Consider in advance whether you'll be able to hoist your luggage and if travelling with kids, theirs too! Use the maps function on booking.com: We booked our accommodation through booking.com, and when searching, honed in on properties close to bus stops or ferry terminals. This was a blessing as we found taxi services to be sorely hard to come by on the coast, and there are certainly no app-based services. Look for top-rated hosts: An excellent host review score is a good indicator that your booking will run smoothly. Like us you may want to look for hosts who can offer transfers between properties – we found this invaluable given the challenging geography. Call ahead: In steep villages like Conca dei Marini, some shops offer delivery of groceries, and some restaurants offer pickup/drop-off services for customers; call and ask.
Checklist AMALFI COAST GETTING THERE Naples is the closest international airport to the Amalfi Coast. Talk to your travel agent to find the best route from New Zealand. DETAILS For more things to see and do in the region, go to italia.it/en
