The Amalfi Coast, Capri and Puglia all ask for the same three things in early September, and only one of them is obvious. The first is heat management, because it is still hot at four in the afternoon. The second is a cover-up you can walk into a church in, which means shoulders and knees, and which is what most people forget until they are turned away at a door they travelled to see. The third is a flat sandal that does not look like a beach shoe, since everywhere worth eating is uphill on stone. Evening here is the most dressed of any destination in this series, but the shoes still stay low. Build around one long dress with covered shoulders, one flat sandal that passes at dinner, and a sarong that works as a beach skirt and a shoulder cover. Everything below is in stock and shipping fast this week. There is a timing point too. Italy in the first week of September is still full, so restaurants and boats are booked and the shops in the small towns run out of the obvious things, which makes packing properly worth an hour now.

The daytime spine is a light blue woven maxi with a cap sleeve, which solves the church problem without a second thought, worn over a striped bikini top that reads as a top on its own. On the feet, a black leather flip flop with a leather sole, made in Italy, which is the rare version of that shoe you can wear to lunch. Raffia handles the rest: a bucket hat at half price and a raffia tote. Then the three quiet pieces that do the most work. A gathered gauze cover-up takes you from pool to lunch with no changing, a striped silk cotton sarong becomes a beach skirt or a shoulder cover, and a lace trimmed cotton skort is cooler than any dress for a hot walk through town. A note on fabric: crinkled and woven cottons here are meant to look relaxed, so do not press them flat before you go. One more note on the shoes, since it decides the day: a leather sole looks far better than rubber at lunch and grips worn stone better than it looks like it should.

There is one genuinely extravagant piece in this edit and we are not going to pretend otherwise. A printed satin midi at nearly three thousand dollars is a beautiful dress and a bad decision for a four day weekend, and a plain silk slip with the same silver chain will read the same across a table at aperitivo. Spend on the flat sandal instead. The pieces we would actually defend are the sarong and the cover-up, which sound like afterthoughts and are the reason you can go from a beach club to a duomo without a detour. Half of this edit is on sale at fifty percent, which is real, but sale stock on the smaller and larger sizes was already thin. If you take one thing away, put a shoulder cover in the day bag every morning, because the buildings you want to see will not let you in without one. We would also skip a second bag. One raffia tote covers the beach and the town here, and the small velvet shoulder bag is the only evening piece you need.