There's No Place Like Home...Or Positano

Everyone should visit Positano, the jewel of Italy's AMALFI COAST at least once in their life. After three weeks traveling in Italy, hence my lack of posting over the last 3 and some weeks, my husband and I concluded our trip in Positano. I considered not coming home, but quickly regained conciousness and knew that that was not an option.

We began our travels in Milan and worked our way South through Venice, Florence, Rome and finally 4 nights in Positano. The village built into the cliffs is paradise. The ocean, the beach, the people, the wine, the food I could go on made this one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. We stayed at the Palazzo Murat, a small hotel which used to be the summer residence of Gioacchino Murat, Napolean's brother-in-law. Draped in bright purple Bougainvillea the grounds were breathtaking and the rooms just as charming. It was a short walk from the main beach. In the center of Positano there are no cars which just adds to the quiet charm.

When you tell someone you are going to Italy the common response usually includes a diatribe about the food and wine. Through our travels the food was wonderful, but again Positano proved even more spectacular in fare. The fruits, vegetables pasta and seafood were like nothing that has ever graced my palette previously. The color of the tomatoes there should be taken by designers and makeup manufacturers alike to create fabrics and lipsticks. The rich intense red is incredibly dramatic and begs for attention.


The fish soup at Max restaurant in Positano...a MUST visit.

Positano and its people are define pure, simple, subtle beauty. It is unassuming and uncomplicated. It is paradise.

Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone. Its houses climb a hill so steep it would be a cliff except that stairs are cut in it. I believe that whereas most house foundations are vertical, in Positano they are horizontal. The small curving bay of unbelievably blue and green water lips gently on a beach of small pebbles. There is only one narrow street and it does not come down to the water. Everything else is stairs, some of them as steep as ladders. You do not walk to visit a friend, you either climb or slide.

John Steinbeck, Harpers Bazaar, 1953