The Amalfi Coast road: a shelf cut into a cliff

On 2 February 2021, at about half past nine in the morning, the mountain above Amalfi let go. A landslide came off the Vagliendola slope, fell onto the coast road beside the Matteo Camera tunnel and took part of the road with it. Amalfi was cut in two. Nine residents were lifted out by helicopter; nobody died. The road reopened on 24 April.

That is the Amalfi Coast road in one story: a thin shelf cut into a cliff, stringing together towns that were never built for a road.

Stairs and mule tracks

For most of their history the towns of this coast faced the sea. Between the 9th and the 11th centuries Amalfi was a maritime republic, and UNESCO, which listed the coast in 1997, describes a landscape shaped by that power and by “a fusion of eastern and western influences”. On land there were stairways for short trips and mule tracks for longer ones — UNESCO calls them the narrow mountain paths that “historically connected farms and villages”. The tourism portal Discover Campania adds that the paths were also how people fled inland when the Saracens landed.

A road for a king’s birthday

The first serious plans came in the 18th century, for a road inland via Agerola. In 1811 Joachim Murat, Napoleon’s king of Naples, approved a road from Amalfi through Atrani and Minori to Maiori, and from there over the mountains via Tramonti and the Chiunzi pass towards Naples. Work began around 1815, but by the 1820s only the stretch from Amalfi to Maiori could be used.

The decisive choice fell to the Bourbon king Ferdinand II, who approved the cheaper route round Capo d’Orso to Vietri and Salerno. Here the sources disagree. The Italian Wikipedia gives 1835 for his decision, but also says the works ran from 1832 to 1850; the local newspaper Il Vescovado says only “between 1832 and 1850”. The opening is better attested: the Italian Wikipedia and the writer Laura Thayer, in a piece on the road’s anniversary, both date the inauguration of the road from Vietri to Amalfi to 12 January 1853 — Ferdinand II’s birthday. Thayer gives its name at the time as the Strada Ferdinandea della Costiera di Amalfi.

West of Amalfi the road came later. Thayer dates its extension to Positano and on to Meta, on the Sorrento side, to the early 1890s; we found no second source for that date. The photographers who sold views of Italy to travellers in those years — Giorgio Sommer in Naples among them — made the new road one of their subjects.

In 1953, a century after the opening, the road became a state road: the SS163 Amalfitana. Il Vescovado has published a photograph from the summer of 1962 of workers preparing the road bed for asphalt near Laurito, outside Positano.

A road without room

The Amalfitana runs for about fifty kilometres between Meta and Vietri sul Mare. ANAS, the Italian state road agency, says that in many places two large vehicles cannot pass each other, and that in some places the road is less than six metres wide. At Furore it crosses the mouth of a narrow gorge, the Fiordo di Furore, on a bridge about thirty metres above the sea.

Furore is known as “the town that isn’t there”, because its houses are scattered up the mountainside. Roberto Rossellini lived here and filmed Amore with Anna Magnani, and the town has a museum to her in her former home.

At Atrani the road crosses the mouth of the Dragone valley on a row of arches, right above the beach. Further east, round Capo d’Orso, it passes the lighthouse on the stretch that was the Bourbons’ choice.

Odd and even

Because the road has no room, ANAS rations it. Under ANAS ordinance 340/2019, based on mobility agreements signed at the prefecture of Salerno, cars are restricted between Vietri sul Mare and Positano by the last digit of their number plate. The rule applies from 10:00 to 18:00. The municipality of Praiano puts it plainly: on even dates, cars whose plate ends in an even digit may not drive; on odd dates, the same goes for odd digits. Some websites state the rule the other way round — trust the municipalities, not them.

Large coaches have their own limits under a second ANAS ordinance, 337/2019. In April 2022 the regional administrative court rejected appeals against the restrictions — both the odd–even rule and the limits on coaches — Positano Notizie reported.

Before you go

The plate rule in 2026. According to the municipality of Praiano and the Costa d’Amalfi tourist district, the rule applies every day from 30 March to 6 April; every day over the April and May holidays (from 25 April to 2 May — Amalfi’s notice says from 24 April); on the weekend of 30–31 May and on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays in June and July; every day from 1 August to 30 September; and on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays in October. Outside 10:00–18:00 there is no restriction. Amalfi’s own notice covers only the spring dates. The dates are set again each year, so check the municipalities’ notices before you plan.

Who is exempt. Motorcycles and scooters, residents of the coast’s municipalities and of Agerola, vehicles with a disability permit carrying the permit holder, taxis and hired cars with a driver, and emergency vehicles. Hotel guests with a booking are exempt too, but only for the drive in on the day they arrive and the drive out on the day they leave; so are workers with a contract, for work trips only, and owners of second homes with a certificate from the municipality.

The other way along the coast. The ferry company Travelmar links Salerno, Vietri, Cetara, Maiori, Minori, Atrani, Amalfi and Positano by sea.