Positano
You might want to rethink your retirement plans. There is a perfectly good living to be made in Positano, on the Amalfi Coast of Italy, by buying a couple of donkeys and going into the delivery business. Washing machines, sofas, mattresses, dishwashers, cinder blocks, lumber, sand, gravel, whatever. In the narrow walled lanes and stairways of Positano that pass for thoroughfares, anything too big or too heavy to go on a human shoulder comes to the door on delivery donkeys. The only way to get a truck or a car or even a cart through those corkscrew alleyways would be to employ a vehicle howitzer the size of a bowling alley.
Back in the days when Barbary pirates and Venetian corsairs and brigands under any ragged pennant drooled over coastal towns as ready sources of plunder and slaves, making your streets skinny and twisty was good defensive policy, forcing marauders to come under your hail of rocks and arrows and boiling oil in single file. Of course in good years the Positanese fleet did a little trading and sacking themselves, enough to fund the construction of hillside mansions and a gorgeous waterfront cathedral and a couple of monasteries. I employed the word hillside in the last sentence. A misnomer. The houses and mansions of Positano, many of which thrive these days as hotels and B&B’s, are glued to cliffs. Should you happen to tip your wine glass off the patio railing it would shatter on your neighbor’s tile roof below.
After the World War II Allied invasion of the Italian Peninsula at Anzio and during the prolonged assault of Monte Cassino from which the Italians defended the approach to Rome, the Allied brass looked round for seaside venues to rest their troops. Eisenhower and Churchill settled the matter by allocating Capri to the Tommies and Positano to the Yanks, who long remembered what they experienced there. The weathered walls of ocher and yellow and umber. The terraced stands of olive trees intermixed with lemons and figs. The pasta. The pastries. The cappuccino. The wine. The Mediterranean Sea below and the Mediterranean sky above.
In the boom years after the the War concluded those GIs got married and found employment lucrative enough to fund the occasional European vacation. They come back. They rented rooms in the homes of the villagers. They hiked. They swam in the sea. They tanned on the beaches. They went home and told their friends about this steep version of paradise.
In 1953 John Steinbeck stopped by and wrote an article about Positano for Harpers Bazaar. “Positano bites deep,” Steinbeck wrote. “It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you’ve gone.” The word was out . . . . but in the six decades since, Positano has managed not to turn into a seaside honky tonk. UNESCO helped freeze the charm of Positano by declaring the entire Amalfi Coast a World Heritage Site twelve years ago, but mainly Positano is preserved by its topography. Every conceivable building site already features something. To erect a new hotel you would have to start with a skyhook.
We will not soon forget the kindly woman who sat at the next table on our second night in Positano, where word reached us of my Father’s sudden death in Philadelphia at age ninety-nine. She overheard our cell phone conversation and saw our faces then reached out with words and touches of consolation to perfect strangers from America.
hutch adventure 2 
Great writing. Got talent?
All my best with regard to your dad’s passing. 99…wow!
And, by the way, how much is a dunkey.? I am thinking about it. LOL.
Jean
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AAAH… thank you for arm chair travel…memories of wonderful trips to Europe.. Twice to Italy.
Keep the blog coming… xxx Marty
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excellent writing, great stories, beautiful settings. What adventures.. The sharing is luscious. Again, great picture of happiness!
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33 days to retirement – I’m NOT going to buy a donkey. . . but I may want to visit Positano.
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Jean-Yves took me, my mom, and my daughter to Positano a few weeks after my father’s death. It soothed our hearts and filled our days with beautiful memories. A totally perfect escape.
Sharon
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You perfectly capture my memories of Positano. I’m so sorry about your father.
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You are such a good writer! I want to come there now! I, too, am so sorry about your Dad, Bill! Hope the rest of the trip is fantastic. You two are such a cute couple! Thanks for your posts!!
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A truly remarkable and beautiful part of the world. Try just having a drink at the San Pietro Hotel just outside the main town of Positano on the way to Ravello.
Continue to enjoy your journey.
Ken
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Hutch adventurers, Nice to read that you 2 are toughing it out in your retirement…if you are retired that is. And Bill, sorry to hear about your Dad passing, but he must have had plenty of experiences in his century of life. Hope they were mostly good ones.
Alan
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Keep it coming! Love hearing about your adventures!
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Absolutely love your ability to paint a verbal picture of your adventures. Keep ’em coming. Regarding the kind woman in Positano – as dangerous and bleak as most of the world media make of our condition, it’s like sunshine and a breath of sea air when I hear about our ability to be human. Safe travels.
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Hi Bill:
I was sorry to read about your father. He had a long life and I’m sure it was a good one!! I’m glad that you have Positano to use as a place of reflection. As always, your travelogue is fantastic!! I enjoy every one of them. Carrie N
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You are so right. We have spent many a great day hanging out in that town and hiking the hills up above. And if you are still there go up to Ravello and sit in the square and have a glass of wine for us. Primo! Best John Hutchinson
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Hunter bought some cool art on those twisty streets. You make us recall special times. Thank you.
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Bill & Lori………sounds like we could sell some old C.F. RUMPP & SONS leather goods and expense our retirement that way !!!! Really great to see and be with you recently……..will be off to Maui end of June or so…..will keep in touch ………… Carl & Patty Rumpp
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Positive re Positano as destination, thanks to your notes, Bill
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