Positano

Positano is a town of 3,643 inhabitants in the province of Salerno, in Campania, Italy. It lies about 24 km west of Salerno, the provincial capital.

The municipality covers 8.42 km², with a density of 433 inhabitants per km².

The nearest airport is Naples (NAP), about 33 km away as the crow flies. Read our guide to the airport.

What kind of place it is

Positano is a vertical town, nicknamed the "vertical city", on the western side of the Amalfi Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997. The houses descend in tiers towards the sea and flights of steps link the upper part to the beach. The two main beaches, Spiaggia Grande and Fornillo, can be reached on foot, while La Porta, Arienzo and San Pietro Laurito are reached mainly by sea. The nearest railway stations, Seiano and Meta, are over 5 km away.

The climate is very mild, with warm winters, minimum temperatures that rarely fall below 6 °C, and long, hot, sunny summers, cooled by the sea breeze. It is a place for those looking for sea and scenery, and also archaeology: beneath the church there is a museum of a Roman villa. Tourism after the Second World War made it an international destination, but it has kept its sheer urban form.

A short history

The first signs of settlement are prehistoric: in the Upper Palaeolithic the Grotta La Porta, at 120 metres, was frequented by hunters and gatherers, who fed mainly on molluscs, as shown by the excavations that followed the surveys of Antonio Radmilli in 1955. There is no evidence, however, of a Greek presence, despite the myth of the sirens. From the 1st century BC the Sorrentine coast filled with luxurious villas: one occupied the bay of Positano, another the island of Gallo Lungo. According to the archaeologist Matteo Della Corte the villa may have belonged to a Posides, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, from whom the name would come. It was first described in 1758 by Karl Weber, who oversaw the excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii.

In the 10th century a Benedictine abbey dedicated to San Vito and Santa Maria is documented, which lasted until the 18th century. Under the Angevins and then the Aragonese the coast was fortified with watchtowers against raids. Positano took part in the trade of the Republic of Amalfi and in the 18th century became one of the most important commercial centres of the kingdom: many citizens were shipowners and merchants of textiles, timber and spices, with bases in Italy, the Middle East, Northern Europe and South America. The richest families, Cinque, Attanasio, Stajano and others, financed by the town's two bankers. From the period remain the late Baroque villas on the eastern slope. Business declined at the end of the century and almost ceased at the beginning of the 19th century because of the Napoleonic wars, and many merchants moved to Messina, Palermo, Naples, Salerno, Gallipoli, Bari and Monopoli.

From 1806 to 1860 it was the chief town of a district in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. After Unification many people from Positano emigrated. After the First World War, in which the town paid a very high toll in blood, Russian and German artists and writers took refuge there, such as Vincenzo Caprile, Semenov, Essad Bey, Clavel, Escher and Massine. The tourist boom came after the Second World War.

What to see in Positano

• Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta (Collegiate church of Santa Maria Assunta)The main church, in the appearance given by the works of 1777-1782, with the Black Madonna, a Byzantine icon, on the altar. Above the door is a medieval bas-relief with a pistrice and a plaque of 1902 for Flavio Gioia, after whom the square is named.
• MAR Positano, Museo Archeologico Romano (Roman Archaeological Museum)An underground site beneath the collegiate church, inaugurated on 18 July 2018, with two crypts and a room of the Roman villa. The frescoed room of the imperial age is the only example of wall painting from the Roman villas of the Amalfi Coast, with very vivid colours.
• Chiesa di Santa Maria delle GrazieIn the upper part of the town, rebuilt on an 11th-century chapel, it has an elliptical plan, a dome and an 18th-century majolica floor with plant-motif decoration. It is one of the main Baroque monuments of Positano.
• Chiesa di San GiacomoIn the Liparlati district, visible from the centre by its bell tower with an onion-shaped majolica spire, often painted. The 18th-century floor bears the symbols of the pilgrims of Santiago.
• Torre della SpondaThe oldest of the towers, of the 13th century, it has a cylindrical Angevin form with a sloping base. It has an open platform and the gun ports added in the viceregal period. It is private.
• Torre di FornilloA pentagonal tower on a spur sheer above the sea, at the end of the Fornillo beach. It was a ruin when the Swiss Gilbert Clavel bought it in 1909 and rebuilt it respecting its form.
• Li Galli e Torre del Gallo Lungo (Li Galli and Gallo Lungo Tower)An archipelago with an Angevin tower controlling the bay, turned into a home by Léonide Massine, who bought the islands in 1922.
• Chiesa di Maria Santissima del RosarioIn piazza dei Mulini, formerly a Dominican complex of 1614, later a court and the seat of a confraternity. It keeps a Roman sarcophagus with a dancing procession and a carved tuff portal.
• Grotta La PortaA small cave at 120 metres, 10 metres above the state road, frequented in the Upper Palaeolithic.

Nearby, within 10 km

Places with a story around Positano, with the distance as the crow flies from the centre.

Sights and monuments

• 0.4 km
  Museo archeologico romano Santa Maria Assunta
• 0.4 km
  Chiesa di Maria Santissima del Rosario (Positano)
• 0.4 km
  Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta (Positano)
• 3.2 km
  Grotta di San Catello
• 3.7 km
  Santuario di San Michele Arcangelo al Monte Faito
• 3.9 km
  Chiesa di San Gennaro (Praiano)
• 4.8 km
  Cappella di Santa Lucia (Vico Equense)
• 4.8 km
  Chiesa di San Giovanni Battista (Vico Equense)

Mountains and hills

• 2.9 km
  Monte Sant'Angelo a Tre Pizzi
• 4.4 km
  Monte Faito

Islands

• 4.7 km
  Scoglio dell'Isca
• 6.3 km
  Scoglio Fusarella
• 6.4 km
  Scoglio della Margherita

Hamlets and villages

• 3.8 km
  Arola (Vico Equense)
• 4.8 km
  Massaquano
• 5.5 km
  Bonea (Vico Equense)
• 5.7 km
  Pianillo
• 6 km
  Seiano (Vico Equense)

Other places

• 5.8 km
  Comunità montana Monti Lattari - Penisola Sorrentina

When to go

2019-2024 averages: highs (red), lows (dark blue), monthly rainfall in mm (bars). Source: ERA5 data via Open-Meteo.

The warmest month is August, with average highs of 30° and lows of 22°; the coldest is January (12° by day, 6° at night). Most rain falls in November (276 mm over about 18 days), while July is the driest month (18 mm). Hours of sunshine go from 7 a day in winter to 14 at the height of summer. For walking and sightseeing with mild temperatures and little rain, the best months are June, September to October.

Getting there

The nearest station is Seiano, 5.6 km away as the crow flies: you can come by train, but the last stretch is by bus or taxi, to be checked before you leave. Other stations: Meta (5.7 km), Vico Equense (5.9 km).

Festivals and local products

• Madonna delle Grazie first Sunday of JulyA solemn feast in the church of the same name, in the upper part of the town.
• San Giacomo 25 JulyA procession through the little streets of the Liparlati district.
• Santa Margherita 20 JulyFeast of the patron saint of the chapel of Fornillo.
• Madonna del Rosario 7 OctoberA solemn feast in the church of the Mulini.

Did you know

• According to a legend the Black Madonna, brought by sea, called out to the sailors with "Posa, posa" ("Put down, put down"), and landed in the town, then called Mortelle.
• Flavio Gioia, the legendary inventor of the compass, is considered to be from Positano.
• San Vito Positano, the football team, was saved from bankruptcy in 2014-15 by Alessandro Cecchi Paone.

The town in numbers

Population at the censuses since 1861 and latest figure. Source: ISTAT, Wikidata.

In 1861, at the first census of united Italy, Positano had 2,705 inhabitants. The historic peak was in 2013 with 3,950; today there are 3,643, that is 8% fewer than that peak.

Editorial texts by Italy Travel Escape; data from Wikidata, Wikipedia, ISTAT and Open-Meteo.

Positano on the map

Nearby towns

All towns in the province of Salerno →