Things to Do at Duomo di Amalfi (Cathedral of Saint Andrew)

Duomo di Amalfi towers over Piazza del Duomo like a striped sugar cube, its 62-step staircase warm under your palms as you climb. The façade—Sicilian-Arabic stripes of cream and charcoal—blazes so fiercely at noon you’ll squint through the glare to study the 12th-century bronze door. Inside, the air snaps cold, scented with candle wax and old paper; your steps ring off marble while a soprano rehearsing for vespers lets one pure note linger in the nave. The cathedral is two churches stacked: the upper 13th-century basilica with its wooden coffered ceiling, and, down a tight stairwell, the earlier crypt where Saint Andrew’s bones lie behind smoked glass. Locals still argue—good-naturedly, over espresso at Pasticceria Pansa—whether the gold reliquary or the view from the loggia wins the prize: terra-cotta roofs spilling toward a sea that flashes silver between laundry lines.

From Salerno, SITA bus 5120 lands you at Amalfi’s waterfront in 40 minutes; from Sorrento, the same line wrings your stomach for 75 minutes. Drivers pay €3-5 per hour at the Luna Rossa garage—cheaper than most coastal lots. Already in town? The cathedral staircase begins where Via Lorenzo d’Amalfi meets the piazza; you’ll smell lemon granita before you see the steps.