On the Amalfi Coast, there’s a small town called Minori. It’s the kind of place that’s easy to miss – a blink-and-you’re-past-it sort of town. And our stay there was completely accidental.
Since my first visit to the Amalfi Coast in 2008, I’ve been back six times. I’ve stayed in Amalfi, Atrani, Ravello, Conca dei Marini and now Minori. Why keep returning to the same stretch of coastline, trip after trip, when there’s an entire world left to see? I’m not entirely sure. I have close friends there, my favorite restaurants, and the coast itself never seems to grow old. It stays vibrant and welcoming. Yes, full of tourists; but mostly only during the day.
There wasn’t much to do, but the pool was open, the drinks were cold and the nearby restaurants overflowed with fresh seafood. Honestly, there was nothing to complain about.
In the evenings, once the cruise ship crowds return to their cabins and the day-trippers ferry off to Sorrento or Naples, a hush settles over the towns. Amalfi becomes almost secret, like a treasure shared only among those willing to climb 100 or so steps to their hillside hotels.
And that’s exactly what we did for most of the trip. We stayed in a little boutique hotel with a perfect view of the Mediterranean from our balcony, and we dutifully climbed those 100 steps daily to earn it. Our days were spent walking to Ravello (a story for another time), ferrying to Positano, lazing under beach umbrellas, or splashing in the sea with an indefatigable seven-year-old. Eventually, our dreamy sun-soaked days came to an end.
We had booked everything perfectly – every detail, every connection timed just right. And then, of course, our flight changed.
A few weeks before we left, we found ourselves scrambling. Our connecting flight was canceled, and the new departure time left us stranded. The only solution (poor us) was to add an extra day to the trip, which triggered a domino effect of rebookings. Our lovely hotel didn’t have space for the last two nights, so I looked nearby. I found a spot in Maiori with a pool and booked it without much thought.
Now, Maiori is right next to Minori. I guess I wasn’t paying close attention to how far the hotel mobile app had expanded its search, because it wasn’t until the night before we checked in that I realized we weren’t staying in busy, shop-filled Maiori – but in tiny, nearly invisible Minori, just a sneeze away. (A sneeze that, to be fair, takes you around a perilous cliffside curve … so, a dangerous sneeze.)
Still, the hotel was beautiful. After nine days of roasting, jagged beaches that left our feet raw, the smooth, shaded pool was a relief. There wasn’t much to do – unless you count climbing endless stairs, which wears thin for a seven-year-old and frankly, an almost-forty-year-old, too – but the pool was open, the drinks were cold and the nearby restaurants overflowed with fresh seafood. Honestly, there was nothing to complain about.
We didn’t choose Minori, not exactly. But in the end, it felt like Minori chose us – knowing somehow that what we needed to close out our vacation wasn’t more hustle, but long sun-drenched hours by the pool, good food and a slow, sweet farewell to a coast to which I’ll always return.
