Italy is the destination where the shore matters as much as the sea. Almost every anchorage has a town behind it, and the towns are the reason to be there: Positano stacked up its cliff, the fishing harbour at Panarea, the pastel terraces of Portofino. A week here is usually a mix of swimming and going ashore, rather than the anchorage-led weeks that define a Turkish Blue Cruise.
The fleet reflects that. Alongside traditional gulets and motor sailers relocated from the eastern Mediterranean, Italy carries a large number of Italian-built motor yachts and sailing yachts, so the choice ranges from a wooden 21-metre boat for six guests to a modern yacht with a full crew and a tender for waterskiing.
There is no single Italian cruising ground. The four that matter for charter are separate coastlines with their own bases, and a week is spent inside one of them rather than travelling between them. Choosing the region is the first decision, before the yacht.
The Bay of Naples and the Amalfi Coast is the best known. Naples and Salerno are the usual bases, with Capri, Ischia and Procida in easy reach and the Amalfi villages a short hop along the coast. Departures from Gaeta, further north, open the quieter Pontine islands instead.
The Aeolian Islands sit off the north coast of Sicily and are the closest thing in Italy to a classic island-hopping week: seven volcanic islands within sight of each other, reached from Milazzo or Palermo, with Stromboli erupting quietly through the night at the northern end of the group.
Sardinia is the third, and the most yacht-focused. The Costa Smeralda around Porto Cervo and the granite islands of the Maddalena archipelago give clear water, white sand and the shortest passages of any Italian region. The Ligurian and Tuscan coast in the north is the fourth: Portofino, the Cinque Terre villages and the island of Elba, from Genoa, Imperia or Livorno.
Anchoring rules are stricter in Italy than further east. Large parts of the Amalfi Coast, the Maddalena archipelago, the Cinque Terre and the waters around the Aeolian Islands sit inside marine protected areas, where anchoring is restricted or banned, mooring buoys are used instead and daily permits may be required. The crew handles the paperwork, but it does mean more nights in harbour, and harbour fees on this coast are the highest of any destination we cover.
