Amazing AMALFI

With its rich heritage and stunning vistas, there’s a reason why the Amalfi coast is the gem of the Mediterranean, as travel editor David Wickers explains

The spectacular scenery of Italy’s Amalfi coast, with its vineyards, lemon and olive groves, almond trees, oleanders, camellias and bougainvillea, has long been one of the best-loved stretches along the Mediterranean shores. First to come, according to legend, were the Greek gods, flying in for short breaks between their bouts with fabled monsters and consultations with their oracles. Then it was the turn of the Roman emperors, including Tiberius, who relocated the HQ of the entire empire to his villa on Capri. Skip forward a few centuries and the Amalfi shores became a popular haunt for writers and artists, with the rich and the royals hot on their heels. And then, in the 1960s, it was our turn.

RESORT LIFE

Sorrento is the peninsula’s largest resort, lively but at the same time a rather genteel place. It’s not on the sea but above it, perched on the top of a line of cliffs with superb, wraparound views of the Bay of Naples, the perfectly formed Vesuvius looming on the horizon. There’s an elegance to much of the architecture, including several rather grand hotels, some in the bed business since hosting Grand Tourists in the 18th century.

The shopping is good, the bars and restaurants plentiful, but Sorrento does not have a beach. Swimming happens off wooden T-bar jetties 150 feet below town at the base of the cliffs, with soldierly rows of sunbeds, sentry box changing huts and steps leading into the big blue.

Nowhere on the Med beats Sorrento for outings. Its Marina Piccola is a Clapham Junction of communications, with ferries, hydrofoils and jet-boats whizzing off to chic Capri, with its expensive boutiques and the famous Blue Grotto, and Ischia, an island famous for mineral-rich natural springs that have been tapped for 2,000 years.

The most popular mainland trip is to Pompeii. Far from being a heap of stones, what you see is everyday Roman city life caught in the very moment when Vesuvius blew its top in 79AD. Herculaneum is Pompeii’s better-preserved twin victim, smarter and more residential.

Neighbouring resorts, which stand along one of Europe’s most super-scenic but challenging coastal roads, include ridiculously pretty Positano, the houses and boutiques of which cling to the side of a mountain in a shower of confetti pinks and peaches. Minori and Maiori are the Little and Large of the Amalfi coast, segregated by a headland and with the peninsula’s best beaches.

The town of Amalfi has a real, workaday character and, with its animated knot of medieval streets and casbah-like alleyways, a sense of history. The bronze doors on its immense, humbug-striped, marble cathedral, for example, were cast in Constantinople in the 11th century. You should also turn your back on Amalfi and follow the hairpin turns to the exquisite hilltop retreat of Ravello, a place of elegant palaces, old churches and two superb gardens – the beautiful villas Cimbrone and Rufolo, suspended between the sky and the sea.

• Seven nights with Citalia costs from £899pp b&b in a seaview room at the hotel Marina

Riviera in Amalfi, including flights and private transfers; citalia.com.