The cape itself, a rocky headland full of sea caves, lies some way west around the coast, past Marina di Camerota, and both belong to the same wild southern end of the Cilento. The name comes from Virgil: Palinurus was the helmsman of Aeneas, who fell asleep at the tiller, tumbled overboard and washed up on this shore, where he was killed by the locals. His ghost, in the Aeneid, asks for a proper burial, and the cape was named for him.
The Cilento and Vallo di Diano national park is one of the largest in Italy, and its southern coast is its most dramatic. Between Marina di Camerota and Scario lies the stretch called the Costa degli Infreschi, a protected marine area with coves and freshwater springs bubbling up into the sea; there is no road along it, only boats and a coastal footpath. The water is very clear, the rocks are pale limestone and the maquis smells of rosemary and myrtle in the heat. Inland, the Cilento was home to the Greek city of Elea, later Velia, where the philosopher Parmenides was born.
The roads are the reason to come. From Marina di Camerota the road climbs inland through Lentiscosa and over to San Giovanni a Piro, twisting through olive groves and terraces with views across the gulf to the mountains of Basilicata and Calabria. Then it drops in a series of hairpins to Scario. Surfaces can be patchy, and in August the coast fills with Italian holidaymakers, but outside summer you may have whole valleys to yourself. Watch for loose gravel washed onto the road after storms.
San Giovanni a Piro sits on the ridge above and Scario is its little harbour, with a promenade, cafés and seafood restaurants where the catch of the day is the only menu you need. For fuel, the coast road towards Policastro Bussentino and the town of Sapri at the head of the gulf are your best bets. Try the local fusilli, rolled around a knitting needle, and the white figs of the Cilento, dried and stuffed with almonds.