CF Travel Guide: Naples and the Amalfi Coast

Spending nearly a decade with a man from Southern Italy kinda rubs off on a girl. Namely a true and unwavering love for refined carbs, good coffee and gelato (spaghetti alle vongole! Pizza marinara! gjanduja!) – unfortunately he won’t let me share with you his family’s recipes (something about swimming with the fishes), so I thought I’d do a post sharing all the little nuggets of travel info I have picked up over the years ‘from the inside’. Feel free to drop me any questions in the comments on specifics if you are visiting the area and need more ideas/tips. 

NAPLES
Arrive in Naples much improved Capodichino airport and prepare for a baptism of fire – this is the unapologetic ‘real deal’ of Southern Italy. Be guided as to the ‘no-go’ areas, stay savvy to the whereabouts of your valuables and then – relax. Let yourself be absorbed by the history, faded glamour and vibrancy of the city – visit Giuseppe Sanmartino’s The Veiled Christ in the Sansevero Chapel for perhaps the most emotive and intricate example of marble sculpture you will ever see. See ‘the other Naples’ with a two-hour walking tour 40m under street level, through the ancient city’s aqueduct (a blissful escape in the midday heat but not for the claustrophobic) that was transformed into bunkers during WWII, complete with 1940’s graffiti.

The best sfogliatelli (sweetened ricotta and candied fruit filled pastries, a speciality of Naples), are at Pintauro on Via Toledo (it’s a hole in the wall job, so don’t expect any frills with the service – just buy one and thank me later). Whilst the city’s finest bowl of vongole can be had at A Figlia do Marinaro, on the Via Foria opposite the Botanical Gardens. Wander past in the early morning and you’ll see them prepping that morning’s haul from the bay for that night’s dinner. The main event here though is the pizza, the L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele on Via Cesare Sersale has five generations of experience and are purists, only offering ‘real Neapolitan toppings’ of Marinara and Margherita. Expect to queue for an age, but persist and you will taste the best pizza in Italy, served rapidly and with no ceremony (and on paper plates). If you are not completely straining at the waistband by now, stop off for an ice-cream sandwich at one of the many gelato joints. Two scoops of soft, fresh gelato wedged in a warm cloud of brioche. Decadent yes, but what else are holidays for?!

For a hit of culture (or simply to walk off some of your daily calorie intake) the archaeological museum is a must, not only for its ‘secret room’ of rather graphic Roman artefacts retrieved from Pompeii and Herculaneum (worth a giggle), but also for the important collections of mosaics, antiquities and jewellery, that have all been recovered from the sites. Go to Pompeii and Herculaneum first as being able to imagine all these relics in their original homes makes them all the more poigniant.

If you need to escape the heat of the city for an afternoon, nip up to Museo di Capodimonte, the city’s ‘National Gallery’ equivalent. It includes examples from all the nation’s great painters, with a particular Neapolitan bent, including Titian, Raphael, Caravaggio, El Greco, Botticelli and Bellini. All housed in a beautiful palazzo with cool courtyards in which to wander. The view is another big draw, as is the incredible Cameo factory and shop next door.

If you’re done with city living, take a day trip from the harbour to the exclusive rocky outcrop of Capri for unabashed people watching with the yachting glitterati (it’s where Testino shot that D&G Light Blue advert with Mr. Gandy), or opt for a day on Ischia – Capri’s bigger, greener, less expensive neighbour. Here you will find the Negombo spa. The natural thermal waters are heated by Vesuvio herself and have been soothing the aches and strains of visitors since the Twenties (Around €12 entry, negombo.it).

Now escape the city altogether and head to the relative retreat of the Amalfi Coast, but you have to get there first. If you drive, then do so with balls and conviction. The Neapolitans can smell a cautious driver a mile off and will gleefully run you off the road in an instance; whilst talking animatedly on their mobile. Wind up the Vallico di Chiunzi road from the motorway (taking the exit at the brilliantly named Angri) and try not to get too distracted on the hair-pin bends by the fruit stalls or the view over the bay of Naples and Vesuvio, dormant yet brooding in the distance.

RAVELLO AND AMALFI

The town of Ravello, prominently placed with 360 degree views over the Bay of Naples to the front and the mountainous backdrop, was founded in the 9th century when the Romans fled the dying empire. The residents elected their own Doge in the 11th century and have held their hill-top stronghold ever since. The Ravellese today are as proud and independent as their ancestors, holding court on the Amalfi Coast from their vantage point amongst the clouds. The glamorous, secluded retreat has attracted artists, musicians and socialites over the centuries – including Wagner, Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence, Chanel and Gretta Garbo.

At the summit of the village lies a cluster of 5* hotels and Michelin-starred eateries, if the credit card stretches by all means, book in and retreat into other-worldly luxury (The Palazzo Avino (above) gets our vote for sheer decadence and old-school glamour – not to mention the view – palazzoavino.com). There are various family-run, more wallet-friendly, priced hotels dotted around the town – try Hotel Giordano, Bonadies or the Parsifal. Make sure you eat at Cumpo Cosmo once during your stay, it’s like a pantomime, with good food thrown in.

Float down into town, take a seat in the main square and just soak it all in – from chocolate-eyed toddlers on their trikes to strutting local teens like peacocks. All Italian life is here. The café under the stairs of the Duomo is the best – the owner Fausto is family, a true gentleman and a good man to know in these parts.

Once revived, check out the town’s two historical villas. Villa Ruffolo, in the shadow of the duomo, was restored by Scot Francis Nevile Reid in the mid 18th century, pay the €6 or so to get in, just to get the ‘classic’ postcard Ravello shot (above). Wander out the other side of the square and you’ll reach Villa Cimbrone, rebuilt by Lord Grimthorpe in 1904, the house itself (now a hotel) is the supporting act to the main feature, the villa’s idyllic gardens, which culminate in the famous Belvedere of Infinity that Gore Vidal described as “the most beautiful view in the world”.

With Ravello as your base, dip in and out of surrounding towns and villages, with your mercifully cooler mountain-top retreat to escape to at the end of the day. A tip I learnt the hard way (there was an armed policeman and a lot of gesticulation involved) – never drive to Amalfi. The traffic is ridiculous and the parking, non-existent. Instead, take the regular €2 bus with the locals and zip down the coast road in 20 minutes. You could also hop off at Castiglione the postage-stamp cove with vertiginous stairway approach to cool-off, get there early as towel-space is in high-demand. Minori’s beach is a better bet with infants.

That said, make sure you walk down to Amalfi once during your stay, follow the Dragone Gorge, past a rather charming watermill (I admit I only mention this as it is called Villa Lydia and I fantasise that one day it will be mine). Arriving at sea-level in Atrani, a warren of whitewash and cobbles en route to Amalfi.

To save you the research, I have done the hardwork for you, without a doubt the best ice cream in the whole of Italy, ergo the world, is at the gelateria directly opposite the base of the Duomo steps. I will let you decide the flavours as they are all organic, fresh and magnificent. Ditto the pastries at the delightfully antiquated Pasticceria Pansa, forget about calorie consumption and go wild.

POSITANO

As John Steinbeck wrote for his article in Harpers in 1953, “the road [to Positano] hooked and corkscrewed on the edge of nothing.” Indeed, the 12km drive from Amalfi to Positano is thrilling, impossible at times, but enlivening. Pack a beach bag and ease your fraught white limbs halfway in the turquoise cove at Furore.

For some, Positano will be too ‘playground of the rich and famous’ with its Missoni boutiques and €40 for a plate of pasta menus, but just go with it, even if it’s just for the day. Negotiating the vertiginous alleyways a la mountain goat, catching a glimpse of the water through ‘Vesuvio Red’ buildings, drowned in bougainvillea, is what it’s all about. If you are looking to stay, and remortgage your home to do so, one of these ‘rouged’ villas is Le Sirenuse. As the story goes, four Neapolitan siblings (Aldo, Paolo, Franco and Anna Sersale) reunited at the family’s summer house in Positano after WWII and decided to open their home as an eight bedroom hotel, Le Sirenuse – so called after the villa’s enviable vantage point of the Isles of the Sirens in the bay. 60 odd years on, with an additional 55 rooms, Aveda Concept Spa and an antiques and art collection to rival a national archive, Le Sirenuse is still run by the next generation of the Sersale family who, incidently, also own Eau d’Italie – one of the best independent perfume houses EVER.

As a woman ‘married into’ Southern Italy, my love affair with Napoli and the Amalfi Coast is not so ingrained that I don’t still see the region through new eyes with each visit, and I’ll admit, fall even deeper in love – the ungroomed perfection, faded glamour, stoic values and almost comical superstitions of the Neapolitans, the familial hub at the centre of everyday life and the seemingly genetic ability to look Very Cool on a Vespa… I’ve got a feeling this one’s a keeper.