Amalfi Coast and Capri

1. Day 1: Arrive in Naples, sunset in Praiano

   Naples to Praiano over the Lattari Mountains

   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in Praiano
   Day 1 details

   We meet you at Naples International Airport (NAP) or at Napoli Centrale station and drive you to the coast in our own vehicle, so there is no bus or ferry to work out on arrival. The road crosses the Lattari Mountains and comes down to the sea above the Amalfi Coast, listed by UNESCO in 1997 for its terraced lemon groves and cliff villages. Your base for four nights is Praiano, a quiet village between Positano and Amalfi. It faces west, which makes it one of the few places on this coast where you watch the sun go down over the water, towards Positano and Capri. Your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing on the walking ahead, then we sit down to a welcome dinner nearby.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Naples International Airport (NAP) or Napoli Centrale station
   • Private transfer to Praiano
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Welcome dinner

   Free time: Free until the evening briefing

2. Day 2: The Path of the Gods, early

   Bomerano to Nocelle on foot, then back to Praiano

   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Praiano
   Day 2 details

   The hardest walk comes early in the trip, while legs are fresh, and it starts early in the day. Our van leaves Praiano around 7:30 for Bomerano, a village on the Agerola plateau about 20 minutes up the mountain, so we are on the Path of the Gods (Sentiero degli Dei) by 8:00, ahead of the heat and the crowds. The trail runs about 7 to 8 km along the cliffs, mostly downhill on rough stone, and takes about three hours with stops. About halfway, limestone overhangs frame the drop to the sea, with Positano, the Li Galli islets and, on a clear day, Capri ahead. We finish at Nocelle, a hamlet high above Positano, for lunch at a family trattoria. The van brings you back to Praiano for a free afternoon: a swim at Marina di Praia or a rest.

   Included

   • Guided walk on the Path of the Gods from Bomerano to Nocelle
   • Lunch in Nocelle
   • Van transfers to the trailhead and back from Nocelle

   Easier option: Walk the first section from Bomerano to the first viewpoints on the trail, then ride round in the van to meet the group in Nocelle for lunch.

   More active option: After lunch, take the stone steps down from Nocelle to Positano (more than a thousand of them, about 40 minutes) and spend the afternoon there before the van brings you back.

   Free time: Afternoon free

   Activity: About 7 to 8 km and 3 hours on uneven stone path, mostly downhill, with some short climbs. Good shoes with grip, a hat and water.

   

3. Day 3: Amalfi, Ravello and Positano by boat

   Amalfi and Ravello, then the boat from Amalfi to Positano

   • By boat
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Praiano
   Day 3 details

   We reach Amalfi just after 8:00, when the wide staircase up to the Cathedral of Saint Andrew is almost empty and the striped facade in Arab-Norman style is free of crowds, long before the coaches and cruise groups arrive. Then up the hill to Ravello for opening time. At Villa Cimbrone the Terrace of Infinity, lined with marble busts, hangs over the coast hundreds of metres above the sea. At Villa Rufolo, a 13th-century palace whose gardens moved Richard Wagner on his visit in 1880, the terraces look down on the domes of Ravello and the bay. After lunch in Ravello you can walk the old stepped path down to Atrani and Amalfi. In the late afternoon we board the boat to Positano and arrive by sea, the way the town looks best. Stay on Spiaggia Grande for dusk, when the town lights up, and dinner, before the van takes you back to Praiano.

   Included

   • Amalfi and the Cathedral of Saint Andrew from the outside, early
   • Villa Cimbrone and the Terrace of Infinity
   • Villa Rufolo gardens
   • Lunch in Ravello
   • Boat from Amalfi to Positano
   • Van back to Praiano in the evening

   Easier option: Ride down from Ravello to Amalfi in the van instead of walking the steps.

   More active option: Walk the stepped path from Ravello down to Atrani and along to Amalfi, about an hour, mostly steps.

   Free time: Free time in Amalfi in the afternoon and in Positano in the evening

   Activity: The path down from Ravello is all steps and hard on the knees; the van is always an option.

   

4. Day 4: A free day, and dinner at an agriturismo

   Free in Praiano, then the hills above the coast

   • Breakfast and dinner
   • Stay in Praiano
   Day 4 details

   A whole day to yourself in the middle of the trip, so tired legs get a rest before Capri. Early risers can join the guide at sunrise in Positano, when soft light falls on the pastel houses and the beach is empty apart from fishermen. Otherwise sleep in, swim from the rocks or the small beach at Marina di Praia, walk the steps down into the Fiordo di Furore, a narrow inlet crossed by a road bridge, or take a public boat to Amalfi on your own. Your guide is around to help with plans. In the late afternoon the van takes us up to an agriturismo, a working farm in the hills above the coast. You learn to make scialatielli, the local fresh pasta, try the fior di latte and provolone del Monaco cheeses of the Lattari Mountains, and stay for dinner with Costa d'Amalfi wine.

   Included

   • Cooking class and dinner at an agriturismo
   • Van to the agriturismo and back

   Optional experiences

   • Sunrise in Positano with your guide, back for breakfast

   Free time: Free until the late afternoon

5. Day 5: By boat to Capri, Monte Solaro before the crowds

   Praiano to Capri by boat, then Anacapri

   • By boat
   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Capri
   Day 5 details

   We leave Praiano by private boat around 8:00 and follow the coast west, past Positano from the water and the Li Galli islets, round the tip of the Sorrento peninsula and across to Capri. That puts us on the island before 10:00, ahead of most day-trippers. Porters take your bags up to the hotel while we go straight to Anacapri, the quieter upper town, and ride the single-seat chairlift up Monte Solaro, at 589 m the highest point of the island. From the top you look down on the Faraglioni rocks and across the Bay of Naples to the Amalfi Coast. If cloud sits on the summit, we swap the order and come back later. Visit Villa San Michele, the house and garden of the Swedish doctor Axel Munthe, then the afternoon is yours. In the evening, walk the Piazzetta once the last ferries have gone.

   Included

   • Private boat from Praiano to Capri
   • Porterage from the harbour to your hotel
   • Monte Solaro chairlift
   • Villa San Michele in Anacapri
   • Minibus between Capri and Anacapri

   More active option: Walk down from Monte Solaro to Anacapri by the path past the Cetrella hermitage, about 45 minutes and steep in places.

   Free time: Afternoon and evening free

   

6. Day 6: Around Capri by boat, the Faraglioni in late light

   A boat around the island, then the Pizzolungo path

   • By boat
   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Capri
   Day 6 details

   Early in the morning, before the harbour gets busy, a small boat takes us right around Capri. You pass the white and green grottoes, sea arches and the cliffs below Villa Jovis, where the emperor Tiberius ruled the Roman Empire from AD 27, and go through the arch in the middle stack of the Faraglioni, the three rocks off the south coast. If the sea is calm and the queue is short, you can switch to the little rowing boats and lie back to slip into the Blue Grotto; entry is on us, but we do not build the day around it. The middle of the day is free for a swim at Marina Piccola or the Gardens of Augustus. Late in the afternoon your guide walks you from the Arco Naturale along the Pizzolungo path to the Belvedere of Tragara, to see the Faraglioni glow once the day-trippers have left.

   Included

   • Small-boat trip around Capri
   • Blue Grotto entry, if it is open and the wait is short
   • Guided late-afternoon walk on the Pizzolungo path to the Belvedere of Tragara

   Easier option: Skip the Pizzolungo path and walk the flat Via Tragara straight to the Belvedere, about 20 minutes from the Piazzetta.

   More active option: Before the boat or in the free middle of the day, walk up to the ruins of Villa Jovis, about 45 minutes uphill from the Piazzetta.

   Free time: Middle of the day and evening free

   Activity: The Pizzolungo path is about 1.5 hours with steps up and down.

   

7. Day 7: Ferry to Sorrento, Pompeii in the late afternoon

   Capri to Sorrento by ferry, then Pompeii

   • By ferry
   • Breakfast and dinner
   • Stay in Sorrento
   Day 7 details

   A slow last morning on Capri: coffee in the Piazzetta, a final walk, or the shops of Via Camerelle. Late in the morning we take the fast ferry across to Sorrento, about 25 minutes, where our van meets the boat. After lunch on your own in Sorrento we drive about 40 minutes to Pompeii, the Roman town buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 and listed by UNESCO in 1997. We go in the afternoon, when the morning tour groups are leaving and the stone is cooling, with a licensed archaeological guide for about three hours: the Forum with Vesuvius behind it, the bakeries with their millstones, painted houses, the theatres, and the plaster casts of people caught in the ash. We keep to one ancient site so you have time to take it in. Back in Sorrento, we end the trip with a farewell seafood dinner by the fishing harbour.

   Included

   • Fast ferry from Capri to Sorrento
   • Pompeii entry with a licensed archaeological guide
   • Farewell seafood dinner in Sorrento

   Free time: Morning on Capri free; lunch on your own in Sorrento

   Activity: Pompeii is about three hours on foot over old Roman paving, with little shade. Bring a hat and water.

   

8. Day 8: Sorrento to Naples

   Sorrento to Naples airport or Napoli Centrale

   • Breakfast
   Day 8 details

   After breakfast there is time for a last walk in Sorrento, a town set on cliffs above the Bay of Naples. The terrace of the Villa Comunale gardens looks straight across the water to Vesuvius, and a few minutes away the Vallone dei Mulini is a deep green gorge with the ruins of an old mill at the bottom, right beside Piazza Tasso. The town is known for its lemons, so this is the place to buy limoncello or a bag of them to take home. Then our van takes you along the coast to Naples International Airport (NAP), or to Napoli Centrale if you are going on by train; fast trains reach Rome in a little over an hour. If your flight is early, tell us when you book and we arrange your transfer to suit.

   Included

   • Transfer to Naples International Airport (NAP) or Napoli Centrale station

   Free time: Morning free in Sorrento

   

Wildlife and weather: July and August are hot and very busy on the coast and Capri; late spring and early autumn are better for walking. Boats and many hotels close or cut back from November to March.

• Praiano4 nights
• Capri2 nights
• Sorrento1 night