We spotted a new addition to the Positano food scene – one in stark contrast to the usual food offerings available. Food Express 24 – burgers, fries, sandwiches, etc, bought from a hole in the wall machine that will “heat your burger in 60 seconds”. The mind boggles thinking about how this works.
I guess at 3am when you’re staggering home from a night out this may be attractive, but would you, really?
Jean captured these lovely shots of a fingernail moon over Positano a few days ago. In one you can also see what we think is the planet Mercury?
Any keen astronomers, please advise.
I try very hard to get photos of people in blog posts. But it can be tricky – particularly when my lovely wife is involved. She is a bit camera shy – but God knows I’ll keep trying.
It’s around 30 degrees in Positano – enough to make any sane person wear as little clothing as possible and to stay in the shade as much as possible. Unless you’re a content creator for Instagram (or similar) when you’re dressed up, in full makeup searching for those “instagram locations”.
One such location is a collection of ceramics displayed by a local shop on a terrace with the village in the background. You’ve probably seen the shots, I’ve included a couple below.
Now it’s fair to say that these shots – and the reality of taking the shots – are a bit different.
This location is right on the main road through Positano which is very narrow and at a point where steps run down to the main piazza so it can get very busy.
There’s a queue to get onto the terrace which lasts all day and gets longer and shorter as the light moves – apparently mid morning is the best time to go because the angle of the sun helps throw a soft light on the faces of the those being photographed.
The terrace used to be roped off so shots could only be taken from the entrance which meant a degree of “sameness” and also a degree of competition as only one person could be photographed at a time.
But now someone from the ceramics shop manages entry to the terrace and the ceramics are laid out in such a way that content creators can set up multiple shots ensuring everyone has a unique view. It also opened up the opportunity for video to be shot as content creators moved across the terrace.
It costs 10 Euro or a purchase from the ceramic shop to access the terrace. But shots can still be taken from the entrance for free so there is always a degree of chaos as the queue runs along the footpath onto the road.
Instaglam? You decide.
We arrived in Positano on Saturday and have settled into villa life. The jet lag is pretty much gone and we’re feeling human again. The last couple of days have been spent in and about the hotel pool dealing to our winter whiteness, and even after a couple of days we are both a little browner and a little more able to fit in with the locals.
One thing we were expecting – the crowds – were much reduced on two years ago.
The last time we were here Positano was packed. Mid August is peak season and the combination of the village population trebling as hotels and Air BnBs fill up, and the day trippers arriving by the coach load, meant the village could barely cope.
Good news – this is not so much the case this year. Everyone we have talked to puts this down to a combination of economic uncertainty (particularly holding back American visitors), global unease and shifting travel habits with more visitors earlier and later in the season. In fact one local said with some shock, that some hotel rooms were available at 24 hours notice which, for the last few years has been unheard of.
Day trippers still mean the village is crowded between 10am and 3pm but much less so than in the past.
And the hotels are finding that they are booked longer into the shoulder season. Eden Roc Hotel closes at the end of October which is traditionally when bookings have dropped dramatically but this year they are fully booked right to closing day.
Gentle readers, as you may know we have a favourite place to stay in Rome. Hotel Barocco is a boutique hotel with 38 rooms located on Piazza Barberini at the bottom of the Via Veneto in the cities historical centre.
Our first stay was in 2011 when we lived in Italy for a year. We picked it from Booking.com’s list of hotels as it is dog friendly (so Daisy and Poppy the Bichon Frise could stay with us whenever we travelled from our rental in Tuscany to Rome) and because it looked ‘quite nice in the pictures’.
Since then it has become our place to stay in Rome. It has never disappointed and has always gone the extra mile for us – ensuring that we had a room with a terrace when the girls stayed in 2011 so no one had to go onto the street for comfort stops at 5am, or by making our delayed stay in 2019 (as the student riots forced an extended transit stay in Hong Kong) easy and worry free despite our booking being non-changable and non-refundable.
This trip when we arrived at 9am tired and jet lagged our room was ready for us (which definitely is not the norm in hotels) and we had been upgraded to a room far superior to the one we booked. Thank you to all at Hotel Barocco, what a great start to our holiday.
Next to our hotel in Rome there is a vending machine. It is covered in buttons, has slots for money and for cards, is covered in pictures and Italian writing, and it changes colour every few seconds. It looks a bit like a Las Vegas slot machine, and like one of those has caused both delight and tears.
We have sat at the bar which is next to it and observed many people using, or trying to use it. Last night there was an American girl trying to use it, the interaction ended in tears.
So what is this mystery machine and why does it affect people the way it does. Jean went to investigate.
it is a cigarette vending machine which has instructions only in Italian and a process for purchase that is convoluted and complicated. Clearly the locals understand it, but any visitor is baffled. Often they put their money into the machine only to fail the process to purchase and then walk away empty handed and without their cash.
Upon investigation, Jean’s concluded that ID is required as part of the purchase process. All Italians have this via a national ID card. Things like passports and drivers licences or foreign ID cards are useless – but there is no indication of that on the machine. So having watched people struggle with it and fail, I’m pretty sure that this machine is the most profitable vending machine in Italy.
We had a wonderful time staying at San Felice, it is a magical place. Here are some evening shots in and around the hotel.
We are lucky enough to have friends in Tuscany and we all got together for dinner at San Felice. It was a wonderful night, great food, great wine and great company.
Three Kiwis and four Italians, what a special experience.
Today we leave San Felice and travel to Rome. It’s an early start, but the upside is capturing the view of Tuscany from our front door at 7am.
On Tuesday we moved from Relais Vignale in Radda to San Felice for a few days. Jean has really been looking forward to getting here and was like a kid on Christmas morning – up early on Tuesday, packed and ready to go before breakfast, just wanting to get here although it is only a 20 minute drive.
For those who don’t know, we visited San Felice last year and Jean fell in love with it – so this year we get to stay a few days.
San Felice is a hotel which is made up of an entire traditional Italian Borgo (village). It retains a village feel but has around 50 rooms and suites in the old buildings as well as two restaurants (one of which has a Michelin star), a pool, indoor and outdoor bars, shops, a wine tasting room and two churches.
Jean fell in love with the room, so she shot one of her famous one take videos.
After a couple of days by the pool and a dinner with friends last night in the casual restaurant, San Felice is living up to expectations. Jean doesn’t want to leave – which could be a problem on Friday when we move back to Rome.
We have been in Tuscany for a couple of days and the contrast with Positano is dramatic. Gone is the bustle and noise of the busy seaside town, replaced by the quiet of rural Tuscany. The noisiest thing we hear are the church bells ringing out on the hour or the distant sound of tyres on white roads (gravel roads).
The constants are the long lasting summer weather and the incredible sunsets.
We moved into Relais Vignale in Radda in Chianti a few days ago and it felt like catching up with an old friend. We booked the same room as last year so enjoyed our own private garden and a room with enough room to swing many cats – if we so wished.
Marco still runs the bar like a military operation and remembered us from last year. The pool was still there but with new seats and loungers. The big change was the restaurant – Vignale Ristorante – which has a new manager, who has taken it’s slightly tired and stodgy menu and reinvented it with traditional local cuisine with a modern feel.
The restaurant uses its terrace view to great effect and we spent the first evening enjoying some delicious food – lots of meat and not much seafood, excellent local wine and the view of the sun slowly setting beyond the olive trees.
If you’re staying at Relais Vignale in the next wee while (that would be you Tony W) give the restaurant a shot. I’m sure you’ll be in for a great evening.
We have also been able to catch up with our friends Olga and Dani. We’ve had meals out and meals in – including a traditional kiwi barbecue at their place, with an Italian flavour. Marinated chicken, Italian sausages and a huge slice of prosciutto went on the barbecue, accompanied by arancini, courtesy of Dani, focaccia courtesy of our NZ friend Tina and everything else courtesy of Olga.
There was food for a dozen people but the 5 of us made a good dent in it.
Sunday morning in Tuscany, not a bad way to start the day.
We’ve now been in Positano for a fortnight and have gone from a pasty white colour to a burnished brown (Jean) and a slightly brown tinge (Me). Our stress levels have dropped and our ability to spend time doing next to nothing has increased.
Positano is busy but less busy than last year. The number of people in the village each day seems less and everyone – including the locals – seem happier about that. The general consensus seems to be that 2024 is a return to 2022 visitor levels.
The main reason for this seems to be a reduction in the number of American visitors holidaying this year versus last year.
By coincidence, there is an article on stuff.co.nz today (originally from the Washington Post) looking at tourism on the coast and painting a pretty grim picture of the numbers and the crowding. Some of it rings true but, based on our two weeks, some of it seems to be more about last year than this year.
This last few days we had a visitor from the north staying with us. Our friend Tina has been on holiday in Tuscany and she came down to stay in the casetta for a few days. Days of wine and … more wine.
After two weeks it is time for us to move on to Tuscany – high speed train from Napoli to Firenze, then a rental car to Radda in Chianti and our place for the next few days – Relais Vignale.
As a farewell to Positano, here are a grab-bag of images from the last week.
When we say that Casetta Arienzo is carved out of the cliff, we are not kidding. The best place to see this is in the laundry/downstairs toilet. I’ve posted about this before but it still amazes me the work that went in to building this place. You can still see the holes where the builders drilled into the cliff.
Toscanakiwi 