Positano

Where it sits. Positano is built into a ravine on the northern side of the Gulf of Salerno, where the Lattari mountains fall into the sea at the western end of the Amalfi Coast. The town has almost no horizontal surface. Houses in white, apricot, ochre and faded pink are stacked in tiers up two steep slopes on either side of a dry watercourse, with the majolica dome of the parish church at the bottom and Monte Sant'Angelo a Tre Pizzi rising behind to 1,443 metres. Roughly 1,700 steps connect the levels; the vertical drop from the upper hamlet of Montepertuso to the beach is more than 300 metres. There is one road, and it works as a loop: the SS163 drops into town along Via Cristoforo Colombo, funnels down past the church, and climbs out again along Via Pasitea, one-way for most of its length.

The story behind it. The bay has been used since antiquity — a Roman maritime villa lies directly beneath the parish church, buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 and excavated from 2004, its Fourth Style frescoes of sea creatures and mythological figures opened to the public as the MAR Positano in 2018. In the Middle Ages the town belonged to the maritime republic of Amalfi and traded across the Mediterranean; the Saracen towers on the headlands date from the sixteenth century. Then it collapsed. Steam shipping killed the local merchant fleet in the nineteenth century and more than half the population emigrated, mostly to the United States — the seafront path is still called Via Positanesi d'America. What revived it was first a colony of Russian, German and Italian artists and refugees between the wars, and then, decisively, John Steinbeck's essay for Harper's Bazaar in 1953, which described a vertical town that seemed unreal while you were in it and real only once you had left. The fashion trade followed: moda positano, loose printed linen and leather sandals cut to measure, is a genuine local industry that dates from the same decade.

On screen. Positano's most sustained screen appearance is in Only You (1994), Norman Jewison's romantic comedy with Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr, in which an American woman chases a name she believes is her destiny across Italy and ends up here. The film uses the Spiaggia Grande, the majolica dome, the stepped alleys and the terraces of Le Sirenuse, and it is the reason a particular generation of American visitors arrives with a mental image of the town already formed. Christopher Nolan came for something else entirely. Tenet (2020) shot its yacht sequence — the one the film sets in Vietnam — in these waters in the summer of 2019, with the unit based along the coast at Ravello; the catamaran manoeuvres and the helicopter shots were made off this stretch of shoreline, which stands in for the South China Sea without a single frame acknowledging Italy. Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) also detours here for its Positano sequence, and the coast road above the town has carried more car commercials than any other in Italy.

What you actually see today. Santa Maria Assunta, at the bottom of the ravine, has a dome of yellow, green and blue majolica tiles laid in 1924–25 and a thirteenth-century Byzantine icon of a Black Madonna above the altar; the legend attached to it says Saracen pirates carrying it off were stilled by a voice ordering them to posa, posa — put it down — which is where the town's name is said to come from. The Spiaggia Grande in front is grey volcanic shingle, mostly divided into paying concessions with a public strip in the middle. From its western end the Via Positanesi d'America runs on a ledge around the cliff past the Torre Trasita to the quieter Fornillo beach, a ten-minute walk. Three limestone islets, Li Galli, sit two kilometres offshore; they were owned by the dancer Léonide Massine from 1924 and later by Rudolf Nureyev, who died in 1993.

Getting there and timing. SITA buses run the coast road from Sorrento and Amalfi; ferries from Sorrento, Amalfi, Salerno and Capri operate from April to October and are far more pleasant than the bus. Driving is discouraged and parking costs are punitive. The Sentiero degli Dei, the ridge path from Bomerano, ends with a descent of about 1,700 steps into the town from Nocelle and is the best possible arrival. Everything is steps: the town is unsuitable for anyone with limited mobility, and even luggage is a real problem — porters with handcarts still work the lanes for a fee.