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Italy's Amalfi Coast

This is a quick and handy source for details on the sights, hotels, tour guides and restaurants featured in the "Italy's Amalfi Coast" show. For much more (and updates), see this year's edition of Rick Steves' Italy guidebook.

Ristorante Delfino

Ristorante Delfino gets their seafood right off the fishermen's boats at Marina Grande, and serves it up in big portions to hungry locals in a quiet and bright pier restaurant. It's lovingly run by effervescent Luisa, her brothers Andrea and Roberto, and her husband Antonio. They take good care of their guests, play Dean Martin, and give travelers who carry this book a little glass of limoncello to cap the experience (daily 11:30–15:30 & 18:30–23:00, closed Nov–Easter; at Marina Grande, facing the water, go all the way to the left and follow signs; tel. 081-878-2038). If you're here for lunch, there's a great sundeck and lounge chairs.

Hotel Minerva

Hotel Minerva is like a sun-worshipper's temple. Catch the elevator at Via Capo 32. Getting off on the fifth floor, you'll step into a spectacular terrace with outrageous Mediterranean views and a small, cliffhanging swimming pool and a cold-water Jacuzzi con vista complementing 60 large, tiled limoncello rooms (Db-€140, Tb-€155, Qb-€170, plus €10 for a balcony, these prices — discounted about €30 — are promised with this book through 2007 only if claimed at time of inquiry, no summer half-pension requirement, air-con, parking-€10/day, Via Capo 30-32, tel. 081-878-1011, fax 081-878-1949, www.minervasorrento.com, minerva@acampora.it).

Ristorante il Buco

Ristorante il Buco, once the cellar of an old monastery, is now a small dressy restaurant serving delightfully presented, top-quality food under a grand, rustic arch. The dashing team of cooks build their sophisticated dishes in a state-of-the-art kitchen, while a plasma-screen TV shows all the action to diners. They showcase good wine (especially from Campania) and offer snappy service. The owner, Peppe, designs his menu around whatever's fresh, and travels in the winter to assemble a wine list sure to offer connoisseurs something new and memorable. He enjoys explaining each of the many courses of his €75 tasting menù (€16 pastas, €22 secondi, always a good vegetarian selection, dinners run about €50 plus wine, Thu–Tue 12:00–15:00 & 19:00–23:00, closed Wed and Jan, just off Piazza Sant'Antonino; facing the basilica, go under the grand arch on the left and immediately enter the restaurant at II Rampa Marina Piccola 5; tel. 081-878-2354). Reservations are generally necessary to sit inside under their elegant vault. For outside dining, I'd go elsewhere.

Raffaele Monetti

Fun-loving Carmello Monetti (a jolly, singing, in-love-with-life, grandfatherly type who speaks non-stop "inventive English"), his son Raffaele (much better English, fewer smiles, more information) and brother-in-law Tony (similar to Raffaele) have long taken excellent care of my readers' transportation needs from Sorrento.

Sample trips and rates for their taxi: Amalfi Coast Day (Positano-Amalfi-lunch in Ravello), seven hours, €185; Amalfi Coast and Paestum, 10 hours, €250; transfer to Naples airport or train station, one hour, €90. To get these special prices, promised for up to four people through 2007, mention this book.

The Monettis can take six passengers — at a higher rate schedule — in their air-conditioned minivan. Payment is by cash only. Their reservation system is simple, easygoing, and reliable (Raffaele's mobile 335-602-9158, Carmello's mobile 338-946-2860, "office" run by Raffaele's English-speaking wife, Susanna: fax 081-878-4795, www.monettitaxi17.it, monettitaxi17@libero.it

Be careful: Many cabbies claim to be the Monettis. The Monettis drive Mercedes station wagon taxi #17, usually found at Sorrento's Piazza Tasso. Carmello's specialty is helping Italo-Americans find their families in southern Italy. Email him in advance if you want to find your long-lost relatives, and he can put together a meeting and transportation package. If in any kind of a jam, call Raffaele's mobile phone for information.

Paestum Ruins

Paestum (PASTE-oom) has one of the best collections of Greek temples anywhere — and certainly the most accessible to Western Europe. Serenely situated, it's surrounded by fields and wildflowers, and has a sandy beach and only a modest commercial strip.

This town was founded as Poseidonia by Greeks in the sixth century b.c. and became a key stop on an important trade route. In the fifth century b.c., the Lucans, a barbarous inland tribe, conquered Poseidonia, changed its name to Paistom, and tried to adopt the cultured ways of the Greeks. The Romans, who took over in the third century b.c., gave Paestum the name it bears today. The final conquerors of Paestum, malaria-carrying mosquitoes, kept the site wonderfully deserted for nearly a thousand years. Rediscovered in the 18th century, Paestum today offers the only well-preserved Greek ruins north of Sicily.

Tourist Information: At the TI, next to Paestum's museum, pick up a free info booklet of the site (July–Aug Mon–Sat 9:00–19:00, Sun 9:00–13:00, hours vary, tel. 082-881-1016, www.infopaestum.it).

Arrival at Paestum: Buses from Salerno stop near a corner of the ruins (at a little bar/café). Or, if you're arriving by train, exit the station and walk through the old city gate; the ruins are an eight-minute walk straight ahead.

Cost, Hours, Information: €4 for the museum, €4 for the site, €6.50 for a combo-ticket. The site is free (or 50 percent off) with the Campania ArteCard.

Both the museum and site open daily at 9:00 (except the first and third Mon of each month, when museum is closed though the site is open). Year-round, the museum closes at 19:00 (last ticket sold at 18:30). The site closes one hour before sunset (as late as 19:30 June–Aug, as early as 15:30 in winter, last ticket sold 1 hour before closing). Several mediocre guidebooks are offered at the museum's bookshop, including a €13 past-and-present guide. Dull €4 audioguides are available to rent at the site entrance and cover both museum and site (ID required). There's little English information at the site itself. The site and museum have separate entrances. The museum, just outside the ruins, is in a cluster with the TI and a small paleo-Christian basilica.

Roberta Mazzarella

Local Guide Roberta Mazzarella is good (about €180/day, depending on itinerary, mobile 339-135-7619, robertamazzarella@yahoo.it).

Blue Grotto

Three thousand tourists a day pay about €20 and spend a couple of hours visiting Capri's Blue Grotto (rated [ss]). I did — early, without the frustration of crowds, and with choppy waves nearly making entrance impossible...and it was great.

The actual cave experience isn't much: a five-minute dinghy ride through a three-foot-high entry hole to reach a 60-yard-long cave, where the sun reflects brilliantly blue on its limestone bottom. But the experience — getting there, getting in, and getting back — is a scenic hoot. You get a fast ride on a 30-foot boat partway around the gorgeous island, seeing bird life and dramatic limestone cliffs with scant narration. You'll understand why Roman emperors appreciated the invulnerability of the island — it's surrounded by cliffs, with only one access point, and therefore easy to defend. Then, at the grotto's "distribution center," you pile with mostly Japanese tourists into awaiting eight-foot dinghies, where ruffian rowers elbow their way to the tiny hole and pull fast and hard on the cable at the low point of the swells to squeeze you into the grotto. Then your man rows you around, spouting off a few descriptive lines and singing O Sole Mio. Depending upon the strength of the sunshine that day, the blue light inside is brilliant. Typically, they extort an extra tip (about €2) out of you before taking you back outside to your big boat.

Cost and Logistics: The round-trip boat from Marina Grande costs €9 (daily 9:00 until an hour before sunset, boats don't run in stormy weather or during high tides — check this out before you purchase boat ticket). Once you reach the grotto, you pay €4.50 for a rowboat to take you in for the five-minute row around the inside of the grotto (after your rower jockeys for position for at least 20 minutes), plus €4 to cover the admission to the grotto (total €18, but your rower will expect a tip at the end — €2 is enough, though don't tip if rower did poorly). Anyone can dive in for free after 18:00, when the boats stop running — a magical experience and a favorite among locals.