Campania · Salerno
Vietri sul Mare
The eastern end of the Amalfi Coast, the ceramics town since the fifteenth century, the gateway between Salerno and the cliff road.
Known for
CERAMICS
Polychrome pottery documented since the ninth century, industrially scaled in the 1920s and 1930s by German émigrés; Vietri is Città della Ceramica.
MAJOLICA DOME
The Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista green-and-yellow tiled dome, the town's signature image and the postcard of the Amalfi Coast's eastern gate.
ALBORI
Frazione above the centro, also a Borgo più bello d'Italia, with stone lanes and views across the Gulf of Salerno toward Cetara and Capo d'Orso.
When to visit
Best · May–Sep
- J
- F
- M
- A
- M
- J
- J
- A
- S
- O
- N
- D
- Best
- Hot or crowded
- Quiet
- Mostly closed
The festa: Giovanni Battista, 24 June
Why come
Vietri sul Mare sits at the eastern end of the Costiera Amalfitana, the most populous commune of the UNESCO-listed coastline, separated from the port of Salerno by a single harbour wall. The polychrome ceramics tradition is documented from the ninth century, with a generally agreed start around the fifteenth, and the industrial scale-up came in the 1920s and 1930s when a small group of German émigré artists settled in the workshops and brought the bestiary-and-floral pottery the town still produces. The Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista, sixteenth century, has a green-and-yellow majolica dome that has become the town's signature image.
Vietri is the only Amalfi Coast commune that holds Borghi più belli d'Italia and UNESCO together, and is a member of the Città della Ceramica network. The marina at Marina di Vietri and the cliffside frazione of Raito and Albori sit below and above the centro on the same slope.
The Sunday letter
We haven’t written Vietri sul Mare’s letter yet.
One town every Sunday, with the photo, the food, the festa. Be there when this one comes up. Free, by Peter & Sophia from Pietrasanta.
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What to see
Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista
Sixteenth-century parish church with a green-and-yellow majolica dome and a bell tower of polychrome tiles, the most photographed image of the town.
Museo Provinciale della Ceramica
Ceramic museum in Villa Guariglia at Raito, with Vietri pieces from the seventeenth century through the German-period 1920s and after.
Albori
Cliffside frazione above the centro, also a Borgo più bello d'Italia, with stone houses, lanes, and views over the Gulf of Salerno.
Marina di Vietri
Pebble beach below the centro between the Crapolla and Salerno harbour walls, a working marina and one of the easier coast beaches to reach by train.
Botteghe della ceramica
Workshops along the Corso Umberto and the Via Cristoforo Costa, the active core of the Vietri ceramics industry since the early twentieth century.
The slow-trip planner
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We recommend
Where to eat and stay
Not our picks, but places the guides put their name to — a Michelin star, a Gambero Rosso fork, a Slow Food snail, a Michelin Key for the hotels. Worth a table, a counter, or a night when you pass through.
Volta del Fuenti by Michele De BlasioRistorante
Volta del Fuenti by Michele De Blasio carries one Michelin star, plus two Gambero Rosso forks (82/100).
PascalòTrattoria
Pascalò has two Gambero Rosso prawns to its name.
Living here
- Population 7,180
- Commuter belti
- Pharmacy in town
- High school within a 30-minute drive
- Train station in the comune
- Nearest airport Naples / Salerno, 57 min drive
- Regional capital Napoli, 51 min drive
Tags & datadesignations · numbers · sources
The numbers
- Elevation: 80 m
- Population: 7,180
- Surface area: 9.52 km²
These figures were compiled from public directories — ISTAT, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata — and from the official listings of the guides named on this page. Town details change; verify with official sources before you travel.
Featured on
Vietri sul Mare appears on this themed pick from our Collections:
Close by
More towns near Vietri sul Mare
Cetara
Province: Salerno
The Amalfi Coast's working tuna and anchovy port, where colatura di alici is still aged in chestnut barrels in the cellars behind the marina.
Maiori
Province: Salerno
The Amalfi Coast town with the longest beach and a grid street plan, rebuilt after the 1954 flood took the medieval lanes.
Minori
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The smaller of the two Rheginnae, where a first-century Roman maritime villa sits four blocks from the Tyrrhenian beach.
Atrani
Province: Salerno
The smallest commune in Italy by area, twelve hectares of stacked houses where the Amalfi Coast pinches shut around a single piazza.
Pompei
Province: Napoli
The Roman city buried by Vesuvius in 79 AD, dug back up since 1748, and a modern town around Bartolo Longo's 1876 sanctuary.
🎨 Borghi più belli d'Italia
More Borghi più belli d'Italia towns in Campania
Castellabate
Province: Salerno
A 1123 abbot's castle on a 280-meter Cilento ridge, with a Bandiera Blu beach below and the Benvenuti al Sud film.
Conca dei Marini
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A coastal hamlet of 664 people on the Amalfi Coast, the birthplace of the sfogliatella Santa Rosa and home to the Emerald Grotto.
Cusano Mutri
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A Sannio hill borgo at 475 meters on the south face of the Matese, the only town in the area spared by the 1688 earthquake.
Frigento
Province: Avellino
An Irpinia hill village at 911 meters with a Republican-era Roman cistern complex on its summit and four valleys at its feet.
Furore
Province: Salerno
The Amalfi Coast village with no piazza and no center, scattered on rock walls 300 meters above the only fjord in southern Italy.