Easter 2011 on the Amalfi Coast/Ravello
 

Looking for help re: a 7 day Easter Holiday on the Amalfi Coast:

1. Our current plan is to stay in a 2 bedroom apartment at Villa Scarpariello Relais (located at Castiglione de Ravello). Any experiences/advice re: this hotel/relais? Are there any better properties to stay at for around $300 USD or less per night (sleeps 4 in 2 double/queen/king beds)?

2. Any better locations to stay on Amalfi? We plan to have our own car.

3. Is this a good time of year to go to Amalfi?

Thank you, in advance, for your help! :)

Cathy

Easter week is a holiday week for Italians who very much like driving to the Amalfi area if it's nice weather. Once you are up in Ravello in that time frame you will not easily find parking once you leave Ravallo anywhere along the Amalfi coast.

Ravello is an extremely small town with not a lot of restaurants (many of which will book up quickly during the Easter week.) My favorite is Da Salvatore, which also serves pizza at night. If you are planning on cooking most of your stay, be aware all food shops will be closed Sunday and Monday.

There is next to nothing to do in Ravello except relax and hike and eat and sit in a cafe. Period. It is always a bit tough to get in and out of Ravello if you want to explore other places. It will be even more so during Easter week. If you don't want to leave, you'll have a great time. If you do, to get in and out of Ravello without your car, you will need to take buses or taxis, or make a very steep walk. It is a long drive to Pompeii on twisting mountain roads. Visiting Capri is more difficult from Ravello than it is from towns like Amalfi or Positano.

In general, if you are looking for a very tranquil, rather sophisticated idyll, far removed from everything, you can have an exquisite stay in exclusive Ravello, with its gardens and beautiful views of the sea far below. I would expect lovely weather.

If you want to get out on the sea, or visit Pompeii, or have active days other than hiking, you probably want to base elsewhere, either on the Amalfi coast -- or even someplace else in Italy with more art and historical sites to see.

Having a car in Ravello is not easy---the road up to Ravello is a challenge. I would stay on the coast and day trip to Ravello. Look at summerinitaly.com

Also, I didn't look up your hotel, but if you can't walk to the center of Ravello town proper from where you are staying and your relais doesn't serve food at night, driving to find dinner means finding parking near a restaurant and facing challenging drives home after dinner (with no wine or limoncello).

I live in Italy on a mountainside and very often encourage visitors to Italy to stop running around -- especially in the Amalfi -- and instead enjoy how incredibly relaxing it is to be in a tiny place like Ravello, with a good restaurant nearby, beautiful views, books to read, walks to take, and really have a vacation for once.

If that is what you envisioned when you booked this relais, I highly encourage you to stay there for 7 days enjoy your own Italian heaven -- and it is heaven up there.

But if what you were envisioning is driving to Pompeii, or the coast, or Paestum, or maybe a day trip to Capri, heading to Positano for lunch -- you will end up with a lot of stress trying to negotiate the roads, the traffic and finding parking.