Things to do
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Amalfi Cathedral
Reached by a wide flight of sixty-two steps off the main square, with a striped Arab-Norman facade that was rebuilt in the nineteenth century. The relics of Saint Andrew are held in the crypt below. The interior was heavily remodelled in the baroque period and the crypt is the older space.
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Arsenale della Repubblica
The vaulted stone halls where the maritime republic built its galleys, and the only surviving shipyard of its kind in southern Italy. It now holds the compass museum and the costumes for the historical regatta. Two of the original ten bays were lost to the sea in a storm.
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Cloister of Paradise
A thirteenth-century burial cloister beside the cathedral, built with interlaced pointed arches on paired white columns in a plainly Moorish manner. It is entered on the cathedral's combined ticket and is the quietest corner in central Amalfi. The columns were cut for the earlier basilica and reused here.
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Hotel Santa Caterina
A family-run cliffside hotel just west of Amalfi, with citrus terraces and a lift down through the rock to a saltwater pool cut into the shore. The terraces are worked for lemons that the kitchen uses, and the walk into town along the coast road takes about ten minutes.
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Museo della Carta
A working paper mill in the valley behind the town, where Amalfi made paper from rags from the thirteenth century onward. The guided demonstration of the hand process is the reason to come rather than the display cases. The mill still sells sheets pressed on site.
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Torre dello Ziro
A ruined watchtower on the ridge between Amalfi and Atrani, reached by a steep marked path up from Pontone. The walk is the point: the tower sits on a spur with the whole coastline open on both sides. The path is unshaded and better taken early in the day.
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Valle delle Ferriere
A nature reserve in the ravine above the town, wet enough to keep giant ferns that have grown there since before the last ice age. The walk up passes the ruined ironworks the valley is named for. The path is wet underfoot for most of the year.
