Login

Sign Up

After creating an account, you'll be able to track your payment status, track the confirmation and you can also rate the tour after you finished the tour.
Username*
Password*
Confirm Password*
First Name*
Last Name*
Birth Date*
Email*
Phone*
Country*
* Creating an account means you're okay with our Terms of Service and Privacy Statement.
Please agree to all the terms and conditions before proceeding to the next step

Already a member?

Login
enit

Login

Sign Up

After creating an account, you'll be able to track your payment status, track the confirmation and you can also rate the tour after you finished the tour.
Username*
Password*
Confirm Password*
First Name*
Last Name*
Birth Date*
Email*
Phone*
Country*
* Creating an account means you're okay with our Terms of Service and Privacy Statement.
Please agree to all the terms and conditions before proceeding to the next step

Already a member?

Login
  • Free booking cancellation

Amalfi Coast Day Tour on Tripadvisor

Positano

Positano

News, curiosities and updates of the spectacular Positano

positano

back to blog

History of Positano

This small town on the Amalfi Coast is located in the center of a land rich in history and art, at the feet of the Lattari Mountains, protected from the Northern winds and therefore enjoying a mild climate that favours a luxuriant Mediterranean vegetation.

The main part of the city sits in an enclave in the hills leading down to the coast. John Steinbeck called it the only perpendicular village in the world, which well explains the peculiarity of this little town, whose houses and hotels in beautiful pastel colors are only accessible by one of the long, winding stairways leading up into the center and going down to sea level.

The legend tells that Positano was founded by Neptune for his beloved nymph Pasitea, from whom the place took its name. It was inhabited by the Oscans, and was a port of the Phoenicians, then a Greek colony and, still later, a Roman town with fine villas for the vacationing Patricians of the capital.

After the fall of the Roman empire there was a long sequel of invasions: Saracens, Normans, Angevins and Aragonese, with frequent raids of Turkish pirates, against whom the inhabitants built 3 huge towers in Fornillo, Trasita and Sponda and other smaller towers in other spots along the coast.

During the Middle Ages for centuries Positano was a prosperous port of the Amalfi Republic, trading with the Middle East spices, silks, and precious timberwood; the new wealth gave rise to many Baroque houses with terraces on the sea. In the late 15th century it became a fiefdom of Giovanni Miroballo and then came under the Mastrogiudice and Cossa families.

After the unification of Italy in 1861 the town – as all the South – experienced hard times, and over 50% of the population emigrated to the Americas;d those who stayed survived on a poor fishing economy.

But things started to change in the early 20th century, when more and more writers and artists from Germany and Russia – among them Semenov, Zagoruiko, Essad Bey, Clavel, Escher, Massine, Kovaliska, Ghillausen – started to discover this little jewel of the Amalfi coast, until a seminal essay by John Steinbeck in Harper’s Bazaar (May 1953) brought Positano into the limelight.

Film directors, painters, writers, started to restore the old houses turning them into wonderful villas, and many moved here permanently. A true tourist boom followed, so that today Positano is nowadays among the most famous tourist destinations in the world.

BOOK YOUR EXPERIENCE BOOK YOUR EXPERIENCE