Today's Place to Daydream about: Amalfi

Amalfi, Italy is the heart of the "Amalfi Coast" south of Naples, a rugged region of former fishing villages become tourist havens. It has had two glory eras: as a maritime republic from the 9th century to 1133, and from the 1920s to now.

Amalfi lies at the foot of Mount Cerretto, which rises from the sea steeply up to a height of 4300 feet (1300m). Here a ravine cuts through the cliffs, providing a small harbor and ample fresh water. Otherwise, there is nothing special about the place, and it tells you something about the chaos of early medieval Italy that its thriving ports were Venice, on its muddy islands, Ravenna, surrounded by marshes, and Amalfi, cut off from the land by rugged mountains.

Not a classical town, Amalfi first appears in documents in the sixth century. It freed itself from Byzantine control in 839, declaring itself a republic. It began elected Dukes (as in Venice) in 964 and it is known to history as the Duchy of Amalfi. In 1073 the town was absorbed by the Norman Counts of Apulia, but it remained largely independent. In this period the town was famous for its school of mathematics and its maritime law, the Tables of Amalfi, which served as a model for trading law throughout the Mediterranean. As something like order returned to Italy, less defensible but better-placed cites like Genoa and Naples took over Amalfi's trade, and the city declined. In 1133 it was sacked by the armies of Pisa. It was never again independent. In 1343 a tsunami destroyed the port, which never recovered. In the nineteenth century nearly half the inhabitants emigrated, mainly to Australia.

The cathedral dates largely to the 11th century.

Even more famous is the adjacent Cloister of Paradise, a burial place for the local elite constructed in the 1260s.

In the 1920s the town was discovered by the wealthy of northern Europe, who delighted in motoring over the madcap road from Naples -- their goggles on, their six-foot scarves waving the wind -- beginning the transformation of the Amalfi Coast into today's string of tourist towns.

The town is full of narrow, steep streets.

And little squares.

It would be a wonderful place to be right now.