Napoli & Positano

Simona and I spent 3 days in Positano, passing through Naples along the way. First of all, Naples is insane. I would never have believed that a city like that exists in picture-perfect Italy. Naples is raw and gritty and dirty… its not hard to imagine that you’ve dropped into a 3^rd world country. But the Neapolitans are so damn proud of their city—you gotta love that. And the pizza! Only once in my life have I tasted pizza nearly as good and that was in a small hilltop town near Florence (I can’t remember the name of the place but my friend Shelby and her boyfriend brought me there when I went to visit her a couple years ago and the first bite literally brought tears to my eyes it was so yummy). On the way to Positano we had lunch at Trianon Pizzeria at the suggestion of one of The Expat’s friends. The pizza was good but didn’t blow my mind. On the way back home, we went to Da Michele. Simona and I were outside debating if we should share one pizza (they’re pretty big) but a guy standing near us leaned over and said that the pizza is too good to share and we each had to have our own—enough said. The crowd standing in front waiting for a table (some for nearly 2 hours!) was so thick we could barely make our way inside. We got pushed to the front of the line since we ordered our double mozzarella margarita pizzas to go. We sat on the curb around the corner from the pizzeria to eat and OMG… BEST PIZZA EVER!! No joke.

The dough was perfectly baked, thick and spongy with a slight smoky taste from the wood burning oven, the tomato sauce was so light and simple, the cheese was unbelievably fresh and the basil seemed to take on the flavor of the olive oil they dribbled on top. Excellent. I’m plotting when I can go back to Naples— if only for the pizza. It’s totally worth the 20 Euro, 6 hour R/T train ride—its that good.

Anyway Positano: in a word, magical. It reminded me a lot of Santorini, just in a different color palatte (pretty pastel houses stacked on the side of the mountain instead of all white ones). And everyone was SO friendly and helpful. We kept saying, “Are we just deprived New Yorkers or is everyone extremely nice here?” We made friends with the owner of our pensione (the hotel has an amazing rooftop terrace with breathtaking views. One morning we woke up early to watch the sunrise),

the waiters at the restaurants, the guy at the supermarket, the deli guy, everyone. And it didn’t hurt that everywhere we went there was a group hot guys saying ciao to us and telling us how beautiful we were :) We were told we should have come during the summer but I much prefer going someplace in the off season—you’re not fighting with crowds, you can find cheap hotel deals and you get to see a place for what it really is. Plus the weather was still in the 80s so it was perfect.

We spent our days lounging around at the beachside cafes chatting with the owners, eating lemon ices on the beach and wandering around the tiny downtown area.



At night we went for long dinners at places either recommended by my Lonely Planet or by the locals. We struck out twice in the food dept—first thinking that just because we were at a beach town the seafood would be good. Second thinking it was ever a smart idea to try sushi in small town Italy… oh well.


After dinner we tried to find a bar to have drinks but apparently that doesn’t really exist there. So we just hung out on the terrace of the restaurants drinking wine and free shots of lemoncello. It was a fabulous weekend. Pos is every bit as beautiful as people say it is. We were daydreaming about leaving everything behind and moving there for good. People are happy, everyone knows each other, there’s like zero crime. And the best part is that they work for about 7 months out of the year until the winter when everything shuts down and then get to take a 5 month vacation—not a bad life.