Why visit Amalfi?
The Arab-styled, whitewashed, often covered back alleys of AmalfiAmalfi is now a much reduced little resort town of 6,000 inhabitants, but left over from its glory days are a spectacular Duomo and the Tavole Amalfitane, the western world’s first maritime code, a set of laws that continued to rule trade and the sea until 1570. After you’ve ogled the Duomo while sipping cappuccino from a strategic cafe in the piazza, wander up the main drag Via Lorenzo di Amalfi into the Valle dei Mulini to watch the last paper-maker at work in his shop, and on your way back down detour off the main road to explore the marvelous maze of whitewashed tunnels and alleyways that make up the North African–style casbah of Amalfi’s back streets.
