Week of August 17th, 2015

Monday, August 17th: The San Pietro Hotel. About 10 km outside Positano, the Hotel San Pietro sits perched upon a rocky cliffside.  The lush and verdant grounds are a perfect hideaway for its guests (like Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk) to enjoy privacy. The Hotel's most wonderful aspect is perhaps the elevator built into the rock that whisks guests away to a private beach down below.  The 90-second ride through solid rock is not for the claustrophobic, nor the faint of heart!

One of the Hotel's Terraces

Detail of inlaid tile work on a stone bench

Il Fornillo. Physicists like to say What goes up must come down. But in Positano, a more apt saying is What you go down, you must come up again. case in point, a staircase to the nearby Il Fornillo beach.

It is a ten minute hike, amidst very wild scenery punctuated by towers.

But it is all worth it to have lunch on the beach at this lovely spot.

Bar Bagni da Puppetto.

Next to this Face!

Michelangelo eating bread.

It is a good thing I fortified myself with lunch, so I am ready to face the trip back. Here is the same staircase, seen from the bottom.