This week’s dream: The quiet side of the Amalfi Coast

Most people associate Italy’s Amalfi Coast with luxury, and yet it never runs short on quaint secret spots that only the locals seem to know, said Nicky Swallow in Condé Nast Traveller (U.K.). “A mere seagull’s spit from the super-yachts, chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benzes, and five-star hotels, another, more rural reality exists.” This is a land of fishing communities, and terraced farm villages where farmers till and their wives make cheese. Thirty years ago, I fell in love with the area’s “intriguing mix of sophistication and simplicity,” and no increase in tourist traffic yet has managed to destroy that balance.

Linking the two worlds of Amalfi is a two-lane coastal highway known as Amalfi Drive, or Strada Statale 163. This narrow, ancient road “hugs cliffs and deep gorges” for 25 miles, “slicing through lemon groves and whitewashed villages, rising and dipping above the shimmering sea.” I recommend starting in posh Positano, an ancient hillside fishing village that was transformed back in the 1960s when “the dolce vita jet set moved in, big time.” Just off the coast, you can enjoy “spectacular snorkeling” near Li Galli, a small archipelago where Odysseus is said to have been tempted by the Sirens. Traveling east from Positano “takes you past some pretty impressive scenery,” including pebble beaches “begging you to stop for a quick dip” and the Grotta dello Smeraldo, named for the “intense, greenish light that filters into the cave from an underwater arch.” The town of Amalfi is itself very pretty, and “if you climb up into the narrow, tunnel-like side alleys, you will be catapulted back into the Middle Ages.” To further escape the crowds, find the stepped footpath that leads over the hill into Atrani, an atmospheric fishing village.

The best of the Amalfi Coast is saved for last. Ravello is a “ravishing” town that sits high above the sea, and its “magnificent views and romantic sense of faded glory” have inspired writers and artists for centuries. Most tourists come to visit the fabulous gardens at Villa Rufolo and Villa Cimbrone. But there’s a “feeling of other-worldliness” throughout the town that makes a longer stay a must.

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At Ravello’s Palazzo Avino (palazzoavino.com), doubles start at $300.