Cetara is the first real village of the Amalfi Coast coming from here, and it’s half an hour by car. It has stayed what it always was: a fishing village, boats pulled up in the harbour, houses leaning on each other.
This is where they make colatura di alici, the direct descendant of Roman garum: anchovies under salt, the liquid that drips out, and a condiment that at Christmas ends up on half of Campania’s spaghetti. You buy it here, from the people who make it.
There’s the church of San Pietro with its majolica dome, and the viceregal watchtower on the sea.
We went in December 2023 and January 2024 — and that’s not a detail: in winter the Amalfi Coast is empty, and Cetara is one of the few places that stays alive, because people who work live there.
