The current situation with COVID made it such that we needed to book a COVID-tested flight direct to Rome which meant that rather than fly to Naples, we would need to take three trains, a car ride, a bus ride and a 15 minute walk down steep cobblestone streets with our luggage to get to our hotel in Positano.  It was brutal, but totally worth it.  This Italian village is simply breathtaking – its many terraces, stairways and colourful houses tumbling down the cliff face mixed with the gorgeous seascapes make it something out of a movie.

While much of the first day was spent in transit, we managed to fit in a quick lunch stop for pizza in Napoli and enjoyed a lovely evening in Positano.  We had dinner on Il Fornillo’s terrace and meandered around town in the rain. We ended up having drinks on the beach while watching the waves crash against the shore.

The Path of the Gods

Our first full day started with a leisurely breakfast on Hotel Punta Regina’s terrace, taking in the sweeping views of Positano.  We then decided to go for a hike.  Despite the hotel recommendation of taking a bus to Nochelle, we opted to walk.  We were told it was an hour but several hours and 1700 steep steps later, we were still not in there!  We eventually managed to catch a local bus to go one stop to Nochelle and then thought we had made it to the trail, but it turns out we ended up on some other mountainous trail.  After some difficult but scenic hiking, we turned around. We eventually found this famous Path of the Gods, but made our way down rather than continue to see it in its entirety.

I’m not quite sure which town we got to, but we ended up taking a short taxi ride to the center of Praiano and walking down to One Fire Beach, a trendy beach club for a very well earned lunch and an aperol spritz.

The beach club was great and they had a roped off area to swim and hang out in the water.  We could have spent hours there, but suddenly our gorgeous sunny day turned stormy.  The beach club literally shut down in a matter of minutes and everyone jumped in a water taxi to get back to Positano.  The first few minutes seemed fun but within minutes we were sailing straight through the storm on a small raft. The seas were rough and it felt like hail was pelting at us constantly for what felt like a very long journey (but was probably 15 minutes).  It was painful, but it left us with a gorgeous rainbow in the end.

After a warm shower and a chance to recharge, we made our way to dinner at Next2 for a lovely dinner followed by our usual evening stroll through town.

Swimming in Positano

Our adventurous day of hiking was fantastic but we were ready for some relaxation.  We spent the entire day walking around town, shopping and beaching. After a light lunch at Buca di Bacco, we made our way back to the hotel for drinks and a swim on the roof terrace.

Later that evening we went up into the mountains for dinner at La Tagliata, a famous restaurant perched above the village of Positano. The food itself wasn’t impressive, but the venue was beautiful and the views were gorgeous.

Sailing along the Amalfi Coast

To explore the Amalfi coast by land is only part of the experience as many of the best views are from the ocean.  We spent our last day in Positano on a small wooden boat gliding past various sites along the coast – the Emerald grotto, the Furore fjord, the fishing village of Praiano.  The highlight of the trip were not the sites, but rather the many swimming stops that we made along the way.  We made four stops to swim and we also had lunch and explored the busy harbor town of Amalfi.

We spent our final evening with dinner on the terrace at Da Gabrisa followed by drinks on our own private terrace.