This full-day shore excursion from Amalfi combines the Amalfi Coast drive with a visit to Herculaneum, a good option if you have already seen Pompeii.
After meeting your driver-guide, you have time to explore Amalfi before the coastal drive begins. Near the port, in Piazza Flavio Gioia, a bronze statue honors the supposed inventor of the marine compass, though historians now believe Flavio Gioia never actually existed, the name born from a centuries-old copying error rather than a real person. Amalfi's genuine role in compass history is well documented: sailors here were using the magnetic needle for navigation from the late 12th century, and Amalfi is credited as the first to attach the paper wind rose disc still used on compasses today. Just off the piazza, the Arsenale della Repubblica, the only surviving medieval shipyard in southern Italy, built galleys up to 80 feet long for Amalfi's fleet and now houses a museum with the Tabula de Amalpha, the maritime law code that governed Mediterranean trade for centuries.
From Amalfi, the road climbs and dips along the coastline toward Positano, passing through Praiano and skirting the narrow fjord-like inlet at Furore, with the sea visible far below at nearly every turn. In Positano, you have free time among the stairway streets that lead down to the beach, with time for lunch on your own.
In the afternoon, you leave the coast for Herculaneum, where you explore the site independently or with an audio guide. Like its larger neighbor Pompeii, Herculaneum was buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, though here the town was engulfed by fast moving pyroclastic flows rather than falling ash, which preserved wood, fabric, and even food in extraordinary detail. The disaster left the ancient town nearly 65 feet (20m) below today's surface in places, and it was accidentally rediscovered by well diggers in 1709, with organized excavations beginning under Bourbon rule in 1738. While Pompeii was a working port town, Herculaneum was an upscale seaside resort for wealthy Romans, and today only a portion of the site has been excavated, though what is visible is remarkably well preserved and far less crowded than Pompeii.
Afterward, you return to Amalfi.