I have put off writing about my trip to Italy. I haven't put it off because it was a bad time or because Positano didn't live up to the expectations I had built up for it over the course of three years. I have put it off because everything did live up to my expectations, and as a realist leaning on pessimist, how am I supposed to wrap my head around that? How can I be expected to accept that something could be so perfect, so like a movie, complete even with antics like sprinting up a cliffside to make it on time (read: 45 minutes late) to a dinner reservation and scaling a gate upon realizing I was locked out of my Airbnb complex? Normally, I write my travel posts as a collection of curated recommendations, but that doesn't feel true to my time in Italy. Since I couldn't whittle down the trip into a few bullet points, I have instead scattered my top picks chronologically into a story of my time abroad. I hope you enjoy. I definitely did.
I landed in Naples, incredibly jetlagged from the flight first from Virginia to Paris, France, and then from Charles De Gaulle airport into Italy. My next stop was Positano, which I would reach by a ferry I had booked in advance. From the airport to the ferry port, I took the Naples airport bus. The bus was incredibly easy to find, with tickets available for purchase from a machine inside the airport. What was less easy to find was the ferry departure point for the NLG ferry from Naples to Positano.
I took the shuttle to the Beverello port stop, arriving over an hour ahead of my ferry departure. I was a bit overly confident, thinking I was going to be bored waiting for my boat. I did make it with plenty of time to spare, but not before wandering, quite lost, for about 30 minutes. There was a large building, from which I thought all boats must be departing, but after one of the Italian men checking passports laughed in my face and another, more helpful, Italian woman pointed me in the right direction, I understood only the international cruises left from that building. The other ferries all had check-in in a lot off to the side of the main parking lot, where I waited to board for my final destination.
After about an hour ride--enough time to get the classic first-day-of-vacation sunburn that is still wearing off--I had arrived in Positano on the Amalfi Coast. To say that I was mesmerized by the city is an understatement. It really does look as good as all the photos.
What would also be an understatement is to say that Positano is the steepest place I've ever visited--and I've lived in the Bay area and Seattle. When I booked my lodging, I knew that I wanted a great view of the city. I specifically envisioned having a balcony overlooking the water. What I didn't think about when making that decision was that the quality of the view would be in direct correlation with the distance straight uphill from the docks. When I go again, I plan on staying closer to the water, so that my ambling up the staircases will be a choice, not a necessity after dinner and a limoncello spritz on the beach.
I have a rule--learned back in 2016 while racing to a lunch reservation in Paris--to not book any plans on the day of arrival, so my first night in the Amalfi village was very low-key. I sat by the water and watched the wet-docked boats rocking on the gentle waves. The next day, though, I had two plans I was very excited about: a gozzo boat tour to the Island of Capri and a dinner reservation before sunset at La Tagliata.
I got up early to have a cornetto and coffee, finding one of the few coffee spots near the beach. Even though I have run a half marathon and do Barry's Bootcamp every chance I get, my legs were shaking from the stairs as I made my order in elementary Italian. I had a bit of extra time to wander before queuing with the other American travelers taking the tour to Capri. My reason for choosing this activity has everything to do with my favorite movie Spy, directed by Paul Feig and starring Melissa McCarthy. The island, just west of Sorrento, gets some attention in a conversation in the bar early in the film, in which the actresses debate how the island's name is pronounced.
Once all of us American tourists had all boarded the boat, it became even more obvious that I was thirteen-wheeling six couples who were very confused as to what I was doing there. I sat on the bow of the boat, so my views of the coast were unobstructed as we made our way west, also allowing me to avoid any questions about why I was there all alone. It was meditative, my focus only on the natural beauty of the cliffs and making sure I didn't drop my camera in the water. The boat made its way around the island of Capri, my favorite part of the excursion, and we had the opportunity to jump in the water. I was the first one to jump in out of the women on board, and even though I was only in the Tyrrhenian Sea very briefly, that alone made the tour more than worth it. It was so unique, it felt like a scene out of Mamma Mia.
Before docking for four hours with time to explore the island itself, we were given the option to see the Blue Grotto. Our Italian boat driver--who had been flirting a bit with the only single woman on board (me)--was hesitant to wait in the line for entry. Keep in mind this man was willing to drive the boat with his feet while taking photos of everyone, but waiting in that line did not sound appealing to him. Nobody else was too vocally eager to wait either, so we made our way over to the docks.
It was once we were on land that I started to think I had probably made a mistake booking a tour set to dock only an hour before my dinner reservation. The boat was set to dock back at 5:30 p.m. in Positano. The restaurant--La Tagliata--that I had made a reservation at for dinner was a 45 minute walk from the dock. My reservation was for 6:30. Assuming all of the timing went perfectly (ha), I figured that provided enough time to get a bit lost on the way there--one of the quirks about Positano is that some, perhaps most, of the streets are actually staircases.
With this thought in the back of my mind, I wandered Capri a bit. Capri was very charming, worth seeing if you have the time, but not necessarily essential, in my opinion. The boat tour itself--seeing the grottos and having a chance to go swimming--was the really rare delightful part of the journey.
Most of our group got back to the boat ten minutes early. We boarded and had to drive away from the dock to allow other boats in while we waited for the final couple. Everyone else on board was telling the driver that we had people left behind on the island, but we returned to pick them up once they had made it down to the docks. Even though we left on time, the boat didn't dock until...6:15 p.m. We were delayed a bit in Positano, close enough to swim to shore--which I considered--by our driver and another boat's captain tossing a pack of cigarettes back and forth, before the pack fell in the water and had to be fished out. I was definitely anxious about the state of my reservation, so right after disembarking, I took off running.
I wish someone other than the photographer strolling casually to a wedding reception saw the harrowing journey I took. I had pre-downloaded walking directions, but given how confusing Positano routing is on foot, they didn't help too much. I was using the cardinal directions far more than street names. The first time I got disoriented, I asked an Italian shop owner for directions. He was very helpful, but again the downloaded directions failed me. My attempts to hitchhike--an act of desperation, I'm aware--were met by absolutely no response other than bemused looks from tourists waiting for a bus. I kept sprinting up hill, trying to just go east towards the restaurant and figure out the northern piece of the puzzle after. Even in my out-of-breath, truly-wanting-to-give-up state, I paused at the olive trees, under which a dog and some sheep were resting. It was a scene right out of the movie Under the Tuscan Sun, so I stopped to appreciate it and take some photos. After my umpteenth time getting lost, I looked out at the coast. If I had to be having an existential crisis, it wasn't a bad place for it.
By the time I saw the entrance to the restaurant, out of breath, I thought to myself, "Okay, you've definitely lost the reservation. Your friend who flew out is also definitely gone by now." I decided to go in anyway, assess the damage and then likely make my way back down the side of the road to find somewhere less highly rated that had space available for dinner.
By some miracle, the reservation was not lost, and the table was still being held. The dinner was exactly as one of my New York City buddies had described it--"There's no menu. They just keep bringing you food and wine. You leave very full and very drunk." In between two of the courses, we heard a donkey braying in the garden below, at which point we were encouraged, along with some of our dining companions, to go exploring. I recently ran into them while doing the Italy 4M run in Central Park. Truly a "small world" moment that makes this story even more special. After appreciating the view from another angle, we came back up for the pasta and grilled meat before closing out the meal with housemade limoncello. La Tagliata had elements of some of my favorite spots--Fia in Los Angeles, Nepenthe on the California Coast--but was even more of a mystical oasis.The fact that they provide a free shuttle wherever you need to go afterwards is the cherry on top. If you go, I hope your waiter is Anthony. He was a delight, not just for the fact that he kept bringing us limoncello as we waited for our transport.
The dinner at La Tagliata was a delightful five-hour affair. The slower pace really put me at ease, there was nowhere else to be, nothing to rush to. That night taught me that, no matter your surroundings, you have an extent of your own control over the pace at which you go about your day. Just as I can sprint up a cliff in a coastal Italian town, completely at odds with the natural relaxed pace of those surroundings, it's possible even in bustling New York City to remind yourself on an evening without plans that it's okay to linger by the water, enjoying the view as the sun sets over the East River.