Cilento is a lesser known, equally beautiful coastal area of Italy with lovely seaside towns and historic borghi.
Cilento is actually a UNESCO world heritage site.
Cilento starts just after the town of Salerno and is included in the Campania region of Italy.
While foreign tourists flood Amalfi Coast towns like Sorrento and Positano, we prefer to head further down the Coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea to Agropoli where the Cilento Region officially starts. In addition to fewer crowds, food/hotel prices are much more affordable and the beaches are much larger than Positano’s sad 25 yard long ‘beach’ for example.
Agropoli itself has a long, white sand beach which is for the most a part public beach with a lot of on street parking. Beware though that in August, these parking spots will fill up quickly. In June and July, however we had no problems booking hotels nor finding parking directly in front of the beach. The sea is also clean and fairly free of floating debris like plastic bags which are now ubiquitous in many coastal waters globally.
Officially, Cilento extends to Sapri, although we also like the small town of Maratea just past Sapri for its beaches. (Pictured is the Spiaggia Nera of Maratea). The beach sand is almost black due to its volcanic origins. Swimming is excellent here because within several meters of the beach, the depths become more profound.
And, already on May 1st we had our first swim of the season in Maratea. The water temperature was warm enough for a quick swim and the air temperature above 20 degrees allowed for sun drying prior to having lunch in the old town (one pizza diavola+ with salame, olives and onions). The water quality at Spiaggia Nera, however was not as good as that of Agropoli with evidence of degrading plastic bags in the water.
Next stops Camerota and Palinuro!
Once we have a tally of 10 or more Cilento beaches this season, we will rank them all.
Stay tuned!
