Piazza Umberto I

Piazza Umberto I sits at the mouth of the Dragone Valley, marked by a low stone wall that keeps the tides of the Mediterranean from washing over the cafe tables. It remains the only open square in Atrani, serving as the town’s living room where the village’s main street ends abruptly against the sea. In nineteen fifty-four, the square held its breath as a massive flood surged down from the mountains, burying the entire piazza under six feet of mud and debris.