Positano
Part Of The Amalfi Coast UNESCO World Heritage Site (1997); Comune Di Positano, Province Of Salerno · Positano, Campania
The vertical village on the Amalfi Coast, a stack of pink, apricot and white houses pinned to a cliff above a dark pebble beach, with a majolica dome at the bottom and a single hairpin road threading the top. John Steinbeck wrote that it bites deep and is a dream place that isn't quite real while you are there, and the description has outlived him. Under the church there is a Roman villa buried by the same eruption that took Pompeii, opened to the public only in 2018 and visited ten people at a time. Above the town the Path of the Gods runs along the ridge to the high hamlet of Nocelle. What no photograph conveys is that the town is a staircase: there are several hundred steps between the road and the water, no way around them, and in August and September a number-plate rule keeps half of all cars off the coast road between ten and six. Come in late April or late September and you get the same cliff, the same sea and roughly half the price.
Piazza Flavio Gioia, Positano, Campania, 84017, Italy
The town is open streets with no ticket or hours. MAR Positano 1 April to 31 October daily 09:00-21:00 and 1 November to 31 March 10:00-16:00, guided visits of about 30 minutes for a maximum of 10 people, booking strongly advised and cash not accepted. Santa Maria Assunta free and open daily, closed over the middle of the day and during services. Ferries run roughly April to early November. The internal bus runs into the late evening. The alternate number-plate rule on the SS163 operates 10:00-18:00 on its scheduled dates.