Positano: Guide

Get in

By Bus: take the Sita bus from Sorrento or Salerno('a bit longer journey, but nice!)
Read about the unified public transport ticket Campania#Get around|Campania Unico.

Get around

By Foot: There are loads of little stairs leading from everywhere to everywhere straight. Alternatively there is the one road meandering down to the harbour.
By Bus: a local bus goes down and - especially - up the hill following the meandering always congested road. On that bus no Unico Campania tickets are valid!

See

The place itself.
The harbour.
The shops near the harbour.

Do

Ferry trip to Paestum or Ischia and Capri during summer months.

Buy

Lemons, extralarge.
All sort of lemon products.
Colourfully painted tiles.
Colourful silks.
Limoncello (lemon liqueur produced mainly in the region around the Gulf of Naples and the coast of Amalfi and Islands of Ischia and Capri)

Eat

La Grotta Azura is a cheap and nice local restaurant offering local food close to the first bus stop coming from Sorrento. The owners are an old italian couple which don't care that they speak only Italian and you only anything but Italian and just serve you their very tasty food.

Drink

Sleep

is apparently the only low budget hostel in town - itself having peppered prices. You would want to book well in advance since it gets booked out by American youngsters etc. Its clean, has a lovely breakfast and terraces where you can in the evening admire the view and drink some red wine. The girls at checkin speak an almost too native American English. Caveat: you will get kicked out from 11am til 5pm for "cleaning", but you want to be somewhere else admiring the area during this period anyways.

Villa Nettuno. It's clean and low-budget, with spectacular views of the sea. A brother and sister run the place, and if you're lucky, you'll even meet their mother. The entrance is hard to find, but once you see the little sign, you'll climb up several flights of narrow stairs. If you go in spring, you'll take in the intoxicating aroma of wisteria along with the unforgettable views. The place gets a little spooky late at night, but that only adds to its charm.

opened in 1949 from an idea of Giovanni Cappiello. An ancient villa in the middle of a beautiful garden full of orange and lemon trees surround the hotel today, as in the past, guests love the setting of the hotel. The Villa Giacinta is operated by this hotel, and is a beautiful (if expensive) option for traveling groups. The villa contains 4 bedrooms (3 doubles and one twin-sized), ~4 bathrooms, a large foyer and living room, and a comfortably-sizd kitchen (great for cutting down on expenses in this expensive tourist town). Additionally, there are tiled porches at the front entrance and off the master bedroom and small balconies with great views in some of the other bedrooms. The Villa is cleaned daily, and the cleaning staff are friendly, nice, and deliver fresh figs to the kitchen in summer! The villa is rentable through www.summerinitaly.com, which is a helpful English-speaking website for foreign tourists to Italy. Be warned, though, that both the villa and the Hotel Conca D'Oro are a 15 minute very steep walk to and from the beach/port, and parties with elderly visitors or children may be better off near the beach.

is one of the best hotel bargains on the entire Amalfi Coast. Perched on a steep hillside, all of the 150-year-old villa's rooms overlook the beach and spectacular Mediterranean water beyond. You enjoy this view on your own spacious terrace -- filled with flowers -- where you can enjoy an unforgettable view of the sea. This is one case where the photographs do not even begin to do the smells and sights justice. Make sure you get the second or third floor rooms with the best views. This hotel is across the street and up the hill from the world-famous hotel, , where its views are described as "the most desirable hillside vantage points in Positano" (ItalyTraveller.com). At Le Sirenuse the view will cost you more than 800 Euros. The better view you'll have while eating breakfast on your terrace is just 170 Euros a night (2007 prices). The location seems perfect for walking and exercise. There are only stairs up to Villa Rosa, but a porter will be happy to run back and forth to bring your luggage to your room. They can find a parking spot for your car. The staff is very friendly and helpful (and very strong). It takes 15-20 minutes to walk to the beach, and along the way are the shops and restaurants. It's all steps and stairs to the beach so bring appropriate shoes. (The best way to enjoy Le Sirenuse might be on the way back from the beach. Stop in and have a glass of spumate in the pool lounge area. While we were sipping, an invitation-only fashion show started, and they invited us to stay.)

Get out

Take the local bus to Monte Peruso where you leave at the church. From there you need to find a small steep path uphill. The mountains along the Amalfi Coast have a hidden and unknown network of public footpaths and long stairs criss crossing the lemon teraces, from Monte peruso you will be able to walk to Santa Maria, a small church high up, and back down to Positano. This will give you stunning views down the coast featuring Capri, Positano and the sea. In springtime all sorts of rare spices and flowers grow between cypress trees. Make sure you get a map of some kind showing the footpaths since you WILL get lost without.

Julian Tippett has published a nice walking guide book for the area in the "Sunflower Countryside Guides" series.

Visit nearby Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Climb the Vesuvius|Mount Vesuvius
Visit Paestum
Visit Naples
Visit Capri
Visit Ischia an island outside Naples.

This "Travel Guide" section is drawn from the Wikitravel article "Positano". We hope you will edit and improve it. It is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license.