Where to live

The medieval tangle behind the cathedral: narrow lanes, the bones of Saint Matthew in the Duomo, washing strung between the buildings. It’s the cheapest address within walking distance of the Duomo, and it’s filling up with students, bars, and slow gentrification. Some blocks are tired, parking is a fantasy, and it can be loud at night.

Best for: character and a bargain, if you don’t mind rough edges

The nineteenth-century grid around Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Via Roma, opening onto two kilometres of palm-lined seafront. This is the city at its most liveable: the evening passeggiata at your door, cafés and shops on the pedestrian streets, the water a block away. You pay a bit more for it, and it’s worth it.

Best for: walkable central life by the water

The solid, middle-class districts east of the centre, strung along the coast toward the city beaches. Ordinary Salerno in the best sense: real shops, everyday prices, a short bus or metro hop from the centre, and sand within walking distance. Not pretty, but easy to live in.

Best for: families and value with the beach close

Further east, the modern city: planned apartment blocks, green space, the Arechi stadium and the new marina. It has some of Salerno’s newest flats and its highest rents, and it’s a haul from the old town. The draw is space, parking, and a near-new build rather than charm.

Best for: modern flats and families who want space near the marina

The workaday quarters up the Irno valley, the cheapest addresses in the city, close to the rail links and the university corridor. Nobody moves here for beauty; they move for the rent and the connections. Plain, real, and a genuine bargain.

Best for: the tightest budgets and students

Villages up above the city, green and rural, with the cheapest prices per square metre and a view over the whole gulf. The catch is the usual one for a hillside: you need a car, and you’re living above the city rather than in it.

Best for: calm, space, and a view, with a car