Positano is the most beautiful least practical place. It’s a steep coastal cliff that’s barely suitable to cut a road into, but the refugee founders managed to build a town there, growing crops on the terraces.
Most of the town is spread along one windy hairpin laden road. If I recall correctly there are two intersections in the whole place. The rest of the buildings are hidden up steep staircased alleyways. Even the alleys have vertigo inducing million dollar views (as you can see at the side).
The linearity of the town means you don’t have to worry much about getting lost. The town is situated at a U-shaped crevice where the cliffs double back and form a kind of canyon sloping down toward the sea. It’s a strange feeling to be able to stand at the top of an outcropping and realise you don’t really need the tourist map anymore, because the opposite face of the town is spread out before you, every building visible.
I thought the likes of Queenstown was a tourist trap, but I think Positano might have it beat in that department. Restaurant prices seem to be the result of market collusion and I got the impression that hotels outnumber private homes.
We got a great deal on a 4-star hotel room and I’m still not sure how it wound up in our price range. It was a pretty swank place, but I think I might’ve been more comfortable in a well run 2-star place. Even if the room rate is cheap, they still feel entitled to try and work in exorbitant fees for every service. Poor Melody came down with bronchitis, and we wound up having to book another night at a ludicrous rate so that she could recover. Oh well, you can’t plan everything.