Is Minori a good place to stay as a base to explore the Amalfi Coast for a couple of days? It looks nice enough and has beach. I am curious if anyone has visited the town and what their impressions were. Grazie!

It really depends on what you mean by "explore" and whether you will have a car (and what time of year you are going). If your idea of going to the Amalfi coast is to pack in daytrips to islands and all the guidebook-mentioned towns or sites, then you will be spending a lot of time in transit beginning and returning to a place that is not central to transportation.

If by "explore" you mean discover the glory of being on the Amalfi, eating authentic and fantastic cuisine al fresco, meeting Italian (as opposed to Americanized) holiday culture, hiking on the cliffs in solitude and swimming in the Med, enjoying stunning beauty and feeling very far away from the sad troubles of the world, someplace lovely a bit off the foreign tourist track in Amalfi sounds rich with possibilities for discovery to me.

OK, I apologize for being too vague. My wife and I have been to the Amalfi Coast before, on our honeymoon. We stayed in Sorrento, which we loved. We relaxed and "explored" some of the other coast towns. On this trip will be traveling with our children (who will be 6 and 4 by then) and my parents (it will be the 1st trip to Italy for the other generations). We will be traveling in June of 2010 and we will have a car. In researching places to stay, a couple of the listings I discovered were in Minori and although there is some info about it online, I was hoping someone here might have some firsthand knowledge of the town. For example, perhaps my parents wanted to spend a day on Capri, is the beach at Minori a nice spot to relax with the kids? That kind of thing. Anything anybody can tell me about Minori would be appreciated.

No need to apologize. You were perfectly clear about wanting someone who'd visited Minori to answer, and I probably shouldn't have responded. Your elaborations probably will net you a better response -- although you may have a hard time finding a Fodorite who has been to Minori.

Since I can't resist going further, I will add that whether or not you'll be comfortable on the beach in Minori while your parents daytrip to Capri may also have something to do with how comfortable your parents are finding their way by themselves to and from either Amalfi or Salerno to catch a ferry to Capri.

If you think your group is going to want to split up a lot for separate excursions, you might consider the town of Amalfi as a base, which is central for transportation. If that doesn't seem like the right fit, check out the perfectly flat and sweet little village of Atrani right next to it, within walking distance, although I can't recall if it has a charming beach.

In June, you might find having a car anywhere on the Amalfi coast means paying a premium for parking and having a tough time finding parking in the small towns you visit.

Yes, Atrani has a nice beach--more or less like the one in Amalfi. I passed through Minori and thought it looked nice--the other town that I think would make a great base is Cetara. Both of these (Minori and Cetara) are on what I thought was the prettiest stretch of the Amalfi coast.

I'm reading this wonderful book called "My Amalfi Coast" by Amanda Tabberer, published by Penguin Group (Australia) 2008. She tells you about all the villages on the Amalfi Coast, what there is to do and see. Its just fabulous!

We loved Minori with our kids! The people were wonderful, the hotel was simple and quaint and the food was fabulous.

One of our favorite restaurants in Italy .... oh my, I don't have the name in my head... You will recognize it immediately on the main paseo due to its 8 to 12 inch in diameter vines growing from planters up overhead so thick that it looks solid - I'll find the name and post it. Oh, and the food was great also!

But the real treat is that, with the kids, it's a great little place and it's centrally located. There's even a burger cabana on the beach. It's a relatively flat little inlet with great sand.

Some of our best moments and photos were taken in Minori. It was the day that my little guy, then only eight, said, "Mom, Italy is great, but can we please go see some old stuff in the US next year?" We decided the next family vacation would be Washington DC, which is where we went the following summer. Now, he wants to return to Italy!

Enjoy Minori and its gelato! The gelateria was the only thing open in the afternoon.

Here is a snap of the beach at Maiori, the next town:

http://media.thomson.co.uk/asset/lpp/v00/528/514.jpg


Minori beach:


http://www.maisonraphael.it/images/m...each_small.jpg

Atrani:



http://tinyurl.com/9ymxoo

Thank you all for your input.

My wife and I spent 10 days in Sicily/Amalfi Coast/Rome this past September. We stayed in Maiori just south of Minori. We traveled through Minori each day on the Sita and stopped there one night. It is a charming small town. I think that Maiori has a larger beach and is a little larger town with a little more activity.

We love Minori!
We stayed at Free Holiday B&B and was really sad that we only booked 3 nights.
Here is the link http://www.freeholiday.it/ing/index.html
The owner Antonio, had treated us like long lost relatives; went out of his way to make our stay perfect. he can recommend restaurants and activities around the area.

Kids will enjoy the beach and area around with shops, cafes and gelatos!
Enjoy!