I arrived in Praiano at the hour when the coast road goes quiet. The buses had gone, the shutters were half-closed, and somewhere below, a radio was playing to nobody in particular.
Most visitors see the Amalfi Coast from a ferry or a bus window, in a single day. That is a shame, because the coast only really shows itself after the day-trippers leave, when the light goes copper and the bells start up across the valley.
Lunch is a destination
We spent a morning walking the Path of the Gods from Bomerano, then dropped down hundreds of steps into Nocelle, where an old man sold us lemonade from his front door. Nobody was in a hurry, least of all us.
In Italy, the meal is never the thing between the sights. It is the sight.
At lunch in Nerano, the owner brought out a plate of spaghetti with courgettes that her grandmother had made the same way. We stayed three hours. No one asked us to move.
That is the Italy we try to build our journeys around. Fewer places, longer stays and time for the afternoon to become evening.
Plans journeys for Elsewhere and writes about the places that stay with them.
