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Few stretches of Italian coastline carry the weight of mythology that the Amalfi Coast does, and the town of Amalfi itself sits at the centre of that reputation with a quiet authority. Wedged between steep limestone cliffs and the Tyrrhenian Sea in the Campania region south of Naples, it was once a maritime republic powerful enough to rival Venice and Genoa, minting its own currency and codifying maritime law in the Tavole Amalfitane centuries before most European states had thought to do so. That history is still legible in the fabric of the town: the Cathedral of Sant'Andrea, with its Arab-Norman facade and its crypt housing the relics of the apostle Andrew, dominates the main piazza in a way that reminds visitors this was never merely a fishing village.

The geography here is the defining fact of any visit. The coast road, the SS163, clings to cliff faces above water of an almost implausible blue-green, connecting Amalfi to Positano to the west and Ravello perched high in the hills to the east. Ravello's gardens and its famous concert programme draw a particular kind of traveller, while Positano has become the more photographed of the two neighbours, its pastel-coloured houses stacked vertiginously above a small beach. Amalfi itself is compact enough to walk in an hour, its narrow lanes running back from the cathedral square into a valley where paper mills once operated along the River Canneto. The Valle dei Mulini, the Valley of the Mills, still carries traces of that medieval industry, and the local production of carta amalfitana remains a point of civic pride.