I arrive in the Amalfi Coast as someone who lives here, travels here often, and still has one of its most photographed places on my list. Somehow, I’ve managed to miss the most famous stretch of coastline in the country. That made my first visit feel slightly overdue, but also oddly freeing. I was arriving as someone who lives here, travels here often, and still has one of its most photographed places on my list. I’ve managed to miss the most famous stretch of coastline in the country. That made my first visit feel slightly overdue, but also oddly freeing.
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I took the ferry to Amalfi, which is the way you would tell any first-timer to arrive when the schedule allows it. From the water, the coast comes together in a way the road cannot give you all at once. Towns press into cliffs, terraces rise above the sea, boats move in and out of small ports, and houses stack so tightly they seem to be testing gravity.
When I arrived in Amalfi, I went to lunch at Terrazza 17, the restaurant at Hotel Marina Riviera. I had pasta with a sea view, which was a very good way to enter the town before dealing with the heat, stairs, and crowds outside. After lunch, Amalfi was already in full motion. This was May, but the piazza felt close to peak season. The cathedral steps were packed, people were moving between restaurants and ferry signs, and every patch of shade had someone’s name on it. It made local frustration with tourism easy to understand, even in a town where visitors support the local economy.
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Amalfi still gave me enough to enjoy even in a short window. The Duomo is the obvious draw, with its striped facade, wide staircase, and piazza that works as the town’s meeting point. I liked looking into ceramic shops, following side streets away from the busiest square, and watching ferries pull in and out. It was crowded, but there was still a lot to take in. The lemon grove came later through the Amalfi Monumental Garden Tour, a family-run garden above town focused on traditional lemon cultivation. I tasted lemon water, lemon cake, and limoncello, but the best part was seeing the trees on the terraces and learning about the history of lemon farming.
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Amalfi’s lemons are everywhere in town, on plates, tiles, bottles, signs, and menus. In the garden, they became tied to the work behind them, from climbing the terraces to pruning, harvesting, carrying, and starting again. After the garden, I returned to the city, where the scent of lemons lingered in the air, a reminder of the region’s enduring connection to its most iconic fruit. As the sun set over the coastline, I reflected on the journey—how a place I once thought I knew could reveal itself anew, in ways I never expected.