Amalfi Coast Events

The coast’s calendar splits between a summer arts festival with an international audience and a set of religious feasts that belong squarely to the towns holding them.

The Ravello Festival

Concerts and performances through the summer months in Ravello, running since the 1950s and rooted in Wagner’s visit to Villa Rufolo in 1880. The best-known venue is a stage built out over the cliff at Villa Rufolo, with the drop behind the orchestra.

Saint Andrew in Amalfi, 27 June and 30 November

The patron’s two feasts. The one people describe is the corsa dei portatori: the bearers carry the silver statue at a run up the cathedral’s long flight of steps. The November date is the colder, smaller and more local of the two.

The regatta of the maritime republics

Amalfi, Genoa, Pisa and Venice take turns hosting, so it comes here once every four years, usually in early June: a rowing race preceded by a costumed procession of several hundred people.

Positano in August, and the Byzantine New Year

The Assumption on 15 August in Positano is marked with a re-enacted Saracen landing on the beach and fireworks. Amalfi marks the Byzantine new year at the start of September, a nod to the republic’s eastern trade.

Accommodation is tightest around the regatta and through the festival season; the winter feasts are the ones where a room is easy and the town is full of its own people.