Come to Positano

Cliff Top Dramas

Only a short drive from Sorrento you will find town after town of incredible beauty. These are small towns, almost villages. Each has an individual charm and only you will know whether it is the really tiny or the more sophisticated that you are drawn to.

Positano is the second largest town on the Amalfi Coast. But if it is small and charming that you are looking for, then nearby Atrani is the place for you. There are many alternatives in between and if you choose a hill town near one of its more famous cousins, you will halve your costs.



Each of these hill towns with their amazing views, are serviced by consistently regular buses which can transport you to the ultra-popular coastal towns in only minutes. In Positano itself, the houses tumble down the hillsides part hewn into the rocky cliff faces in breathtaking examples of engineering virtuosity.

No cliff is too great a challenge. Where there is an opportunity a home has emerged. As you make your way down towards the coast the hairpins shelter the most beautifully decorative homes and apartments. Often they are vine-covered; road edged; cliff embedded.

Sometimes there is a shrine set into the most challenging of corners. Sometimes there are monuments placed with views out over the ocean or the cliffs, and seats for those who choose to
pause. Other times there is an ancient edifice converted into current use - maybe selling sweet garments, maybe pots and crafts. Conversion of  ancient edifices to modern usage means survival for many of these historic buildings.








Interspersed with clusters of trees and bushes, the terracotta roofs and the many hues of the plastered walls create a dramatic contrast to the sparkling blue sea below.








Streets twist their way down the hillsides as they wrap around the cliffs, - hairpin bends just an every day occurrence on these steep descents. Vehicles and buses manoeuvre through the streets scarcely wide enough to be one way. Somehow the traffic keeps moving even if only at a slow crawl - blind corners just one more challenge to be skilfully negotiated.






Positano is the town that you will not wish to leave. It is delicate, tumbling, beautiful. It is on the edge of nature and on the edge of engineering virtuosity.

Also Pip McCurdy's New Zealand posts:

On Blogspot, Pip McCurdy on the Road

Website: http://www.unusualstays.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Stay-Somewhere-Strange-273777766054597/

Sorretine Sweet Times

Sorrento

As you wend your way out of the tortuous roads of the Sorrentine Peninsula there will be questions asked: - Can this famous Italian town really be worth hours of twisting turning roads with rocky mountains on one side and steep cliffs on the other, dropping away to those sparkling seas below? As narrow as these roads may be, the locals do not slow and the buses thunder past. Around one more blind corner and finally from nowhere you are plunged into the streets of beautiful Sorrento.

Sorrento is a sea of art and colour. The narrow streets and thin buildings are draped with zigzags of
pendants and buntings. Civic buildings are not afraid to use bright colours that highlight their ornate facades. In the little side streets and alleyways the cafe tables are wrapped in tablecloths of deep blues and reds. Window boxes splash their own seasonal shades to add to the visual frenzy. And all the while the warm Mediterranean sun shines down in a celebration of outdoor living.

In the heart of Sorrento small shops are inserted into any available nook or cranny. The streets open out into small piazzas where locals and tourists pass the time with their coffee or their wine. A deep ravine slices through the heart of the town and disappears beneath the pedestrian dominated streets and into the hillside.

From the cliff tops there are shafts of view down to harbours filled with small boats and to the beaches and coves below - sometimes available only to private hotel guests where a marina or man-made promontory reaches out into the bay.













The rich blue waters are crossed endlessly by small pleasure crafts and by majestic cruise liners on their way back or forwards from the great port of Naples. Many of those passengers will make the day trip to Sorrento by bus. This most picturesque of towns may attract tourists by the hundreds during the day but in the evenings as the crowds depart, the locals remain and the true magic of Sorrento emerges.

Sorrento is not only for the rich and famous. A friendly camping ground in easy walking distance from the centre of town makes this mecca both affordable and accessible to anyone prepared to brave the hair-raising clifftop drive.

Also Pip McCurdy's New Zealand posts:

On Blogspot, Pip McCurdy on the Road

Website: http://www.unusualstays.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Stay-Somewhere-Strange-273777766054597/

Minturno - Take those Side-roads!

Minturno Hill Town

T|he motorways snake their way through the countryside of southern Italy allowing fast passage from one city to the next. But there is more to see than the motorways will ever reveal and a diversion off the motorway to an uncertain destination - sometimes a dot on the map,sometimes an outline on a hillside, - is almost always time well spent.






































Minturno is just such  an undefined hillside diversion - an outline offering who knows what. Time to spare is your friend. Take those side-roads if you can.


The town of Minturno is a survivor of the ravages of war. Historic ruins part destroyed cling on to life and are re-inhabited and resurrected. Residents remain, bringing back their homes from the brink of decimation. In Minturno you will see this remarkable ability to take what remains and turn desolation into new life. From partially destroyed city walls new homes emerge, built into and inhabiting the ruins and then emerging like a butterfly from its chrysalis out of the ruins they have been handed.

 This is truly the spirit of determined survival. Splashes of colour breaking out through grey stone surrounds are identifying markers where new life has taken hold.



Minturno is essentially a dual-town,  - partly low lying on the coast and partly high up on a rugged hillside. Over the centuries it has fought a bitter war and been defeated at least three times, and it is now the hillside town of Minturno that fights on, with the lower town all but overridden except in name, by its surrounding neighbours and their modern beach villas.



















With a sweeping view of the countryside and the coast below, the town of Minturno is a magnificent spot. Quintessential hill-town as it is with its tall houses, its narrow lanes and its protective walls, it is only in its reconstruction that it keeps alive all that it has gone through. With its past in every wall, in every edifice, in every street, it is a town of living history.

Also Pip McCurdy's New Zealand posts:

On Blogspot, Pip McCurdy on the Road

Website: http://www.unusualstays.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Stay-Somewhere-Strange-273777766054597/

Lazio's Magic Coast

Empty Beaches Southern Sunsets

In Italy the coastlines stretch on and on. You are never far from a breath-taking stretch of coast. West or east coast, the beaches are golden and sandy; the waves are summer gentle. Just a little north of Gaeta and Formia there are so many  places to choose from. But the area where the rough carved mountains move close to the sea and the campings are hidden in the soft foliage of the trees is where the scenic charms of the central Italian coast unfold at their best.

Here the low mountains and rough hillsides are eroded and craggy. A handful of bushes cling to the sandstone cliffs. The hills are a furrowed wrinkled rockscape and the beaches stretch out endlessly below.

At the foot of the mountains the hills smooth out into a narrow plain, and it is here that a scattered collection of accommodation options have taken root, most politely tucked in amongst the trees. The road snakes along, sometimes on the edge of the coast. Other times the cafes and camping grounds edge the beach and the road is pushed discreetly back into the foot of the hills. The cafes and restaurants are most often alongside the beach, all with outdoor terraces making the most of the endless views of surf and sand. Most offer accommodation - some providing cabins and camping, others a little more upmarket; -  all low rise, all at least a little understated. T|here are no glitzy chains to be seen along these golden beach fronts...




In the mornings the beaches are empty, the sun umbrellas not needed. Outside each terrace-deck and stretch of beach there can usually be seen someone smoothing, sweeping, re-grooming the sand into a pristine golden sheet ready for the beach-goers and customers later in the day. As the sun climbs, the sun worshipers arrive, the beach umbrellas come out, and precious hours are shared with sun and sea. Late in the day the restaurant terraces fill up, the sun begins to set, the hillsides turn amber, the sea turns to fire; - and the patrons sip their wine and enjoy fine fare and good conversation late into the night.

Also Pip McCurdy's New Zealand posts:

Pip McCurdy on the Road - Blogspot

http://www.unusualstays.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Stay-Somewhere-Strange-273777766054597/

All the Way to Anzio, Italy

A Visit to Anzio 

As you head south and begin to leave the great metropolis of Rome behind, it takes a surprisingly small amount of time to move beyond the urban madness to find those pockets of unspoilt innocence that lend colour to any journey.

Anzio - less than an hour from Rome - has a commercial centre that serves its purpose. But head to the harbour. This seaside promontory is something special. The elongated port is lined with small boats and fishermen on -selling their day's catch. Restaurants edge the pier, with their roll-up canvas awnings and ever-changing views stretching out across the water. Here, the freshest of fish can be enjoyed and the salt air just adds to the flavour.

Anzio as a town has had to endure a lot. World War II was not kind to Anzio. Nettuno -  the neighbouring town -  and Anzio were the sites of several critical battles during this most gruesome of wars, and there was significant loss of life in these towns.




Allied bombing did take its toll on Anzio but a number of villas survived and are landmarks today. In particular a villa belonging to Cicero - yes, that most famous of Roman politicians and orators, - dominates the hillside overlooking Anzio's vibrant harbour. Popes, cardinals and emperors all enjoyed the charms of Anzio as it developed into a town of summer residences for the wealthiest citizens of Rome.













Today Anzio is a much more humble town, in many respects rebuilt almost from scratch due to war, yet retaining enough of the old to still have a charm all its own.


In Anzio expensive pleasure boats dock alongside tiny fishing boats. 1950s apartments rub shoulders with sixteenth century villas. Tourists sit with locals. Fishermen studiously ignore photographers. The tree-covered hillside grounds of the ancient villas spill down almost to the water's edge.








For such a mistreated town it is astonishing that such colour, vibrancy and charm has managed to hold on and re-emerge despite its trials.

www.unusualstays.com ( A New Zealand chronicle of unique and unusual places to stay)
contact me via pippy.mccurdy@gmail.com
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