Michael
For me Ravello is the jewel of the coast - the best views and utterly relaxing, but a right royal pain if you want to do lots of venturing out to Paestum. Pompeii, Capri, Herculaneum, Positano etc.
If you want an apartment, the local travel/estate agency “L’Altracostiera” have plenty of apartments listed by locals. They give you the chance to immerse a little more than staying in a hotel. Daftly, they don’t list prices so you have to email them.
A’Paranza in Atrani is a very decent seafood-focused restaurant in an easily missed and unusual village. *Cumpa Cosimo in Ravello ought to be a tourist trap. Sleb photos adorn the walls, but this has remained simple trattoria done really well (and priced fairly - expensive for a trattoria, but the food is better than ‘normal’). I don’t know if Netta is still alive, but she ran the restaurant with charm/warmth. The sons took over a good few years ago, but she was often still seen there.
In general, do try to hit the fish/seafood more than pasta/pizza. It really is a speciality along the coast and very good.
Andrea Pansa do stunning cakes in Amalfi - again the location should make it a lazy tourist trap, but the quality remains awfully high. Sadly the wonderful hidden wine bar ‘Cantina San Nicola’ morphed into a restaurant - though early reports were it still retained a good wine list, good food and the wonderful setting… I have a vague recollection of hearing a negative report later on though. It is hidden up some steep steps on the left as you head up towards the Paper Mill museum in Amalfi, not far from L’Altracostiera.
The walking is great there, and I’d recommend putting aside plans to take a long day trip every day, in favour of exploring the paths on foot. My favourites include the valley of the Mills, during which we must have gone well over an hour without seeing or hearing another soul. There is a lovely walk as well out the top of Ravello into the woodland, with very few steps. The ‘bible’ for walking there is a little pocket book by Julian Tippett - a wonderful little resource.
Salerno is a decent functional city, should you feel it’s all a bit too ‘nice’ on the Amalfi Coast.
Cetara is noted for it’s seafood restaurants, but we’ve not been.
regards
Ian
- I vividly recall a meal there in 1990. I was there on holiday with some friends, two couples and myself and another single lady. We’d eaten there earlier in the week, and Netta had done her usual (intentional) ‘forgetting’ of a few items on the bill. However this night the couples had a modest disagreement and the girls had stormed off (only half seriously). We arranged to meet them at the restaurant. We arrived after them and clearly had been talking about earlier, as when the bills came, Netta turned to the girls and said “Just the main course each”. She then turned to the boys and said “You had the starter, the main, the dessert AND the wine”. We paid with a smile - we knew we’d been rumbled.