Travel
with us in style,
seeking for culture and
leisure.
POSITANO
It is a dream place
that isn’t quite real when you are there
and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.
Its houses climb a hill so steep it would be a
cliff except that stairs are cut in it. I believe
that whereas most house foundations are vertical,
in Positano they are horizontal. The small curving
bay of unbelievably blue and green water lips
gently on a beach of small pebbles. There is only
one narrow street and it does not come down to
the water. Everything else is stairs, some of
them as steep as ladders. You do not walk to visit
a friend, you either climb or slide. In the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries Positano became very
rich. Its ships went everywhere, trading in the
Near and Middle East, carrying the spices and
silks and precious woods the Western world craved.
Then the large and beautiful baroque houses that
stand against the mountain were built and decorated
with the loot of the world.
About a hundred years ago a tragedy came to the
town. Steamships began to ply the ocean. Positano
could not compete; year by year it grew poorer
and more desperate. At that time there were about
eight thousand citizens. Between 1860 and 1870
about six thousand of the townsmen emigrated to
America and the great houses stood vacant and
their walls crumbled and the painted designs paled
out and the roofs fell in. The population has
never got much above two thousand since.
If Positano bites deeply into a stranger, it is
branded on the Positanese. The bulk of the émigrés
went to New York and most of them settled on Columbus
Avenue. They made a little Positano of it, they
celebrate the same festivals as the mother town,
they talk Positano and live Positano. In New York
there are over five thousand people who where
born in Positano - twice as many as live in the
mother city. Besides these there are many thousands
of descendants and all of them are tied very closely
to the Italian city.
TODAY POSITANO
IS A REKNOWN TOURIST ATTRACTION CITY WITH SOME
OF THE BEST HOTELS IN THE WORLD,THE FASHION IS
BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL AND TODAY WE HAVE WITNESS
OF THAT WALKING BY THE ALLEY ROADS,
LET'S ENJOY TOGETHER THE BEAUTY AND
COLORS OF THIS PLACE.
AMALFI COAST
This tour
will take you on one of the most beautiful coastal
drives that you will ever enjoy in Italy.
Exiting Naples we will initially follow the highway
and then we will head towards the Sorrentina Penninsula
and its most famous town, Sorrento: How to describe
Sorrento – land of Mermaids, land of colours,
the city of orange and lemon groves…whatever
definition you choose it certainly is a special
place. You will find that each of the definitions
is correct as Sorrento is indeed a very pretty
little city where kindness and hospitality are
a combination that is handed down from one general
to the next. Although today, it is quite a modern
city with over one hundred hotels, it is the home
of the prestigious Museum (Correale of Terranova)
as well as being the base for many important cultural
events. Following Sorrento, we will begin to enjoy
the ‘Amalfi Drive’ following the coastline
to Positano. Positano is a town which definitely
owes its good fortune as a tourist destination
thanks to the stunning scenery. It is a dream
like place that almost does not seem real when
you are there, but once you have left Positano
the ‘want’ to return there is very
real. The Fashion and the shopping in Positano
is well worth your visit, the collegiate church
of Santa Maria Assunta which dates back to the
1200’s is a must, the port area is worth
the trip down to see, what you must do on this
tour is simply take in the atmosphere, enjoy some
people watching and soak up the magic of this
place.
Following your time in Positano, we continue along
the coastline to Ravello (about 40 minutes drive).
Ravello, is lesser known than Positano and not
a seaside town however its just as beautiful and
magical. The view over a vast portion of the Amalfi
Coast that one can enjoy from Ravello is one of
the most picturesque and sublime sights that human
eyes can gaze upon. Ravello itself lies on a spur
which separates the Dragon Valley from the Mariori
Valley. Nowadays it is one of the most renowned
holiday resorts in Italy. The Arab-Sicilian style
of the buildings is due to the trading relationships
which the city had establishment with Sicily and
countries of the East. In Ravello you can take
a stroll through the Gardens and Cloisters of
the Villa Rufolo, the most famous monument of
Ravello which dates back to the 13th century.
RAVELLO
Having sprung up
probably in the 6th century, it was populated,
round about the year one thousand, by a group
of nobles from the Maritime Republic of Amalfi
who had rebelled against the authority of the
Doge. The rebels made a good choice when choosing
the site in which to built their refuge: Ravello
rises in an easily defendable position.
The city quickly prospered, thanks in particular
to the flourishing wool-spinning mill, known
in olden times as the "Celendra",
that on the 23rd of April 1292 was conceded
to Bishop Giovanni Allegri by King Charles Il
of Anjou, to provident agriculture and to the
intense trade exchange carried out on the Mediterranean
sea routes, especially with the Arabs and Byzantines.
In 1137 Bernardo da Chiaravalle described the
city as "...ancient, well fortified and
impregnable, as well as being opulent it is
so beautiful that it can easily be numbered
among the first and most noble cities ...".
The history of Ravello was strictly connected
with the glorious and tormented history of the
Maritime Republic of Amalfi, whose lot she followed.
Its economic and political decline began in
the Norman period and became dramatic in the
course of the seventeenth century: having lost
its prosperous economy, Ravello had only...
all the rest: an incomparable position from
the naturalistic point of view and architectural
and artistic marvels built during the centuries
of splendour.
