Campania is a region that thrills all the senses. It’s awash with colour and buzzing with excitement. Its air carries the tang of lemons and the salt of the sea. Its warm, sensuous climate caresses the skin and its cuisine stuns the tastebuds. (Campania has the best pizza, best ice cream and best pasta in all of Italy, many say.) On top of all this, the region’s landscapes are simply jaw-dropping. Capri, Sorrento, Pompeii, Naples, Vesuvius, the Amalfi Coast: they’re all squeezed into this exceptional part of Italy.
Most visitors cleave to Campania’s spectacular seaside areas, leaving the region’s hilly-to-mountainous interior delightfully sleepy and serene. So popular are parts of Campania’s coastline with people from all over the world that property prices in them can be among some of the highest in Italy. Often there’s not much available on the market, because so few people ever sell a home here once they’ve got one. (Anyone trying to find a house to buy on Capri, for example, needs to have a lot of luck on their side!)

Nice view Amalfi Coast
Nice view of Amalfi Coast

And yet Campania also contains some very affordable, great-value seaside property, if you know where to look. Just south of the famously gorgeous and expensive Amalfi Coast area lies the beautiful and lesser-visited Cilento coast. This is an area of charming historical small towns and lovely beaches. Its hinterland rises quickly into hills and mountains, and much of it has been declared National Parkland. Cilento has much of the glamorous geographical drama of the Amalfi Coast, but it’s a tad more rustic and undeveloped, with less glitz and less bright-painted romance. The crowds are thinner and the atmosphere much more relaxed. With new building restricted on the Cilento coast as in many other Italian seaside locales, homes here should hold their value very well. The Cilento area has been “up-and-coming” for a few years now, and there’s still time to take advantage of the favourable market.

Cilento
Cilento

Note that in Cilento as across most of Italy, property prices go down in inverse proportion to altitude and to distance from the sea. This has often worked out very well for buyers who want a view, as they generally get a more expansive one by buying slightly inland and higher up. Many miles of wide blue water and green hillsides are there for you to gaze across and sigh with happiness. The hills and mountains immediately behind the Cilento coast are deeply attractive places to find your rural idyll, with sandy beaches never too far away.
Gate-Away.com features many enticing properties for sale down on Cilento’s shores and up in its pretty hinterland. But if your heart’s already been too smitten by the more popular Amalfi Coast to consider buying anywhere else, don’t worry, Gate-Away.com has homes for sale here too. The area isn’t cheap, but as you can imagine, the holiday rental prospects on any property are superb. Whichever coast you go for, you’re sure to fall deeply under Campania’s magic spell. Happy hunting!