Between Lemons And Gods On A Crowd-Free Amalfi Coast

June on the Amalfi Coast seemed like a place in limbo. There was a strange hush over the rugged coastline. Hotels, restaurants and bars were newly opened, spruced up, impeccably COVID-compliant. But waiters looked forlornly out onto quiet streets and hotel breakfast rooms were hushed with just a couple of guests conversing in low voices. As someone with a deep dislike of crowds and willing to walk hours to find a ‘non-touristy’ restaurant much to the irritation of my holiday companions, the glamorous coastline felt like paradise. Less so, however, for the hundreds of tourist reliant businesses just restarting after months of closure. 

I had chosen to stay in the small, understated locality of Minori in order to avoid the crowded centers of Amalfi and Positano. But there was really no need. I remember fighting my way through the Piazza del Duomo and the main street in Amalfi a few years ago, desperately seeking a restaurant quiet enough to suit my anti-social yearnings. Arriving after the nausea-inducing bus ride this time, I was relieved to be met with just a scattering of visitors. 

In the remarkably tranquil cathedral square, I met Salvatore Aceto, 6th generation lemon farmer who gives tours of his lemon groves just up the hill from Amalfi’s town center. Once the rest of the party arrived, we drove in an electric buggy up the near-empty main street to the Valle dei Mulini (Valley of the Mills), where water gushes mysteriously and cooly beneath the road. Here, the family has its agonizingly steep terraces of lemon trees that produce, among other varieties, the famed Sfusato Amalfitano lemon. 

We climbed upwards, shaded by dark green leaves and pale, luminous fruit ensconced in the foliage. It was not long before we were panting in the heat, at which point Aceto chose to remind us we had only hiked a quarter of the terraces while he and his workers toil up the full ascent daily often carrying wooden logs to construct the supporting pergolas. 

Up here in the Valley of the Mills was the restaurant I eventually found all those years ago when determined to avoid tourist traps. After leaving the lemon groves, I sought another lunch at Il Ristorante del Mulino. My fears at not having booked were laughable. I was one of two diners. As I had been hoping, the deliciously summery pasta with lemon and clams was on the menu again, this time with local scialatielli homemade pasta, a typical fresh pasta of the Campania region. Lemons crop up in all sorts of dishes along the Amalfi Coast, and meals naturally finish with limoncello. Aceto had explained that the lemon based liqueur should be high in alcohol content, and anything below 30% would be of lesser quality. My end-of-meal limoncello certainly seemed to adhere to those alcoholic standards. 

Given the lack of customers at the restaurant, I was able to chat to the waiter who directed me on a postprandial walk along the Valle delle Ferriere to a pretty waterfall, mercifully shaded and with icy water I bravely bore for all of 10 seconds. 

For hikers, the Amalfi Coast offers an embarrassment of choices, provided you have sturdy knees. Later that afternoon, as the sun was beginning its descent, I began an ascent from Minori up to the hamlet of Ravello. Having woefully underestimated the number of stairs, as tourists on the coast are inclined to do, I arrived in the hilltop town as the golden light of early evening was warmly illuminating the main square. 

I headed straight to Villa Cimbrone, a homage to erudite Roman villas created in the 18th century by a grand-touring Englishman, Lord Grimthorpe. In his ambitious bid to make the luxurious, eccentric gardens into “the most beautiful place in the world”, he envisioned the now-famed Terrazza dell’Infinito. Arriving at sunset, I expected queues of snap-happy visitors posing on the balcony that overlooks a limitless hazy blue sea. In fact, we were only a handful, and I was able to get up close to the enigmatic smiles of the pseudo-antique busts.    

The next day, keen to continue avoiding crowds but on a different axis, I was persuaded by the boat tour booking app Getmyboat’s claim to provide “socially distanced boat rides” and headed out with Crapolla tours. There were just six of us, meaning we could spread out luxuriously between the cushioned bow and seating around the stern. 

The Crapolla company is proudly family-run, and we were met by Elisabetta who then introduced us to her boyfriend who was driving and her father who conscientiously supplied snippets of information about the coastline and homemade wine. Elisabetta, in her element as host, perched on the cushions in front to point out 16th-century watchtowers built by inhabitants terrorised by Saracen pirate invasions or popped up from below deck with a bottle of prosecco to tot out. 

The tour took us to the coastline’s chicest destination, the island of Capri. With its fully vaccinated status, it was much busier than Amalfi or Positano. But the island was still clearly missing its Americans, who are the coastline’s biggest clientele. 

Before my trip, I stumbled across a swimwear line irresistibly lemon-themed. The creators, Kenny Haisfield and Christina Vidal, are two of the multitude of visitors enchanted by the isle of Capri where the limpid sea and plum-tinted blossoms are as luxurious as the lifestyle and the designer shops. Designer Vidal told me their Kenny Flowers lemon-printed costumes were inspired by “balmy Mediterranean days spent on bright blue beach chairs drinking Aperol spritzes and eating crisp limoncello gelato on the coast of Capri” — a vision I made no qualms about replicating myself in my fruity bikini. Except rather than ice cream, I sampled Elisabetta’s homemade limoncello back on the boat, which was both refreshing and lethal (Aceto would have approved). 

In another unnecessary attempt to escape non-existent crowds, on my penultimate day, I woke early to hike the aesthetically renowned Sentiero degli Dei. I was out of my apartment by half-past six in order to take advantage of the cool morning air. 

Getting out early means seeing how the Amalfi Coast really operates, beneath the glitz and glamour of yachts and sunset cocktails. My only companions on the bus were local commuters who all knew each other and the bus driver. Avidly eavesdropping, I managed to glean from their dialect that a new bus driver was due to start work that week. Anyone who has traveled along that sickening, serpentine coastal road can easily muster deep sympathy for the poor novice. In fact, on changing buses in Amalfi, I met the ill-fated newcomer, who hitched a ride for a bit of learning experience. He freely admitted to his soon-to-be colleague driving the bus that he was somewhat nervous, and as we hurtled around one hairpin bend after another, his face became whiter and whiter. 

Being on the road so early, I also managed to witness another essential road user, the mule. The Amalfi Coast’s vertiginous cliffs are crisscrossed with a network of staircases meaning mules are fundamental for transporting materials for any kind of building construction or intervention. However, considering the perilousness already presented by blind corners and unmanageable traffic, mule drivers can only use the coastal road early in the morning. (Incidentally, for a karma sutra donkey souvenir, visit the Ciuccio store in Amalfi.)

I met more mules on the Sentiero itself. Translating as the Path of the Gods, it is so named for the legend that the Greek Gods descended along this rocky pathway to save Ulysses — the protagonist of Homer’s Odyssey — from the dangerously seductive singing of the sirens living on Li Galli Islands. The vistas from this dizzyingly precipitous path are, quite literally, divine. 

At the end of the hike in the hamlet of Nocelle, I wandered around to kill half an hour before lunch. I must have looked lost as a mule driver called out to me in English to offer directions. Confused by his stilted speech, I replied in Italian that I was just looking around. Laughing, his companion told me, “He really wants to practice his English for the tourists returning”, a phrase that echoed poignantly in my mind over my fried zucchini flower antipasto in the near-empty restaurant.