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AMALFI |
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Set in a wide cleft in the cliffs, AMALFI is the largest town and
perhaps the highlight of the coast, and much the best place to base
yourself. It has been an established seaside resort since Edwardian
times, when the British upper classes found the town a pleasant place to
spend their winters. Actually Amalfi's credentials go back much further:
it was an independent republic during Byzantine times and one of the
great naval powers, with a population of some 70,000; Webster's Duchess
of Malfi was set here, and the city's traders established outposts all
over the Mediterranean, setting up the Order of the Knights of St John
of Jerusalem. Amalfi was finally vanquished by the Normans in 1131, and
the town was devastated by an earthquake in 1343, but there is still the
odd remnant of Amalfi's past glories around today, and the town has a
crumbly attractiveness to its whitewashed courtyards and alleys that
makes it fun to wander through.
The town
The Duomo , at the top of a steep flight of steps, utterly dominates the
town's main piazza, its decorated, almost gaudy facade topped by a
glazed tiled cupola that's typical of the area. The bronze doors of the
church came from Constantinople and date from 1066. Inside it's a
mixture of Saracen and Romanesque styles, though now heavily restored,
with a major relic in the body of St Andrew buried in its crypt, though
the cloister - the so-called Chiostro del Paradiso (daily: April-Oct
9am-9pm; Nov-March 10am-5pm; L3000/¬1.55) - is the most appealing part
of the building, oddly Arabic in feel with its whitewashed arches and
palms. There's an adjacent museum (same hours and ticket as the
cloisters), with various medieval and episcopal treasures, most
intriguingly an eighteenth-century sedan chair from Macau, which was
used by the bishop of Amalfi; a thirteenth-century mitre sewn with
myriad seed pearls, gold panels and gems; and three silver reliquary
heads - two gravely bearded and medieval, the third an altogether more
relaxed and chubby Renaissance character, with elaborately braided hair.
Almost next door to the duomo, in the Municipio , you can view the
Tavoliere Amalfitana , the book of maritime laws that governed the
republic, and the rest of the Mediterranean, until 1570. On the
waterfront, the old Arsenal is a reminder of the military might of the
Amalfi republic, and its ancient vaulted interior now hosts art
exhibitions and suchlike. In the opposite direction you can follow the
main street of Via Genova up through the heart of Amalfi and out the
other side, to where the town peters out and the gorge narrows into the
Valle dei Mulini , or "Valley of Mills", once the centre of Amalfi's
high-quality paper industry. Apart from a rather desultory paper museum,
there's not much to see here nowadays, despite the grandiose claims
inferred by name, and it's hard to find a mill that is still functioning
- although there is a shop on the left that makes and bottles its own
limoncello (lemon liqueur), a speciality of the region.
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