Vietri sul Mare is where the Amalfi Coast begins, or ends, depending on which way you are riding, and the town marks the point with a cascade of colour. It stands on a steep slope at the eastern end of the Costiera, just beyond Salerno, and it is famous for ceramics. Painted tiles decorate the church domes, the benches and the house fronts, and the shops sell plates and jugs in blue, yellow and green. The craft goes back centuries, and in the early twentieth century German artists settled here and gave the local style a new life. Cava de' Tirreni, a proper town of nearly fifty thousand, is just up the hill, and Salerno is a few kilometres east, so supplies and fuel are easy.
The coast road here is the SS163, the Amalfitana, and it is among the most celebrated and most congested in Italy. From Vietri it runs west, clinging to cliffs above the Tyrrhenian Sea, with tight bends, short tunnels, and views of lemon terraces falling to the water. The road is narrow, and buses and coaches take the bends in the middle, so riders have to be alert. In July and August the queues are long, and a motorbike can be a real advantage, though patience is still required. Spring and autumn are far more pleasant, and weekdays are better than weekends.
The geology is striking. The coast is limestone, folded and fractured, rising steeply from the sea to peaks of over a thousand metres, and the terraces, built by hand over centuries, support lemons, vines and olives. The Amalfi lemon, known as sfusato, is large and fragrant and is used in limoncello. The whole coast is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for this working landscape.
For rest, Vietri is less crowded than Positano or Amalfi, and its seafront is a good place to sit with a coffee and a sfogliatella. Seafood is the obvious choice for lunch: anchovies from Cetara, just along the coast, are famous, as is the colatura, a fish sauce descended from Roman garum. Take care with the parking regulations, which are enforced firmly. At the end of a day, the sea light on the tiles is a fine finale.