Positano

We stayed in a five star hotel with striking views of the Italian beach. We slept in a room with gold plated sheets and our own semi-private canal in Venice. We traveled to see the sweeping sights of Rome and the sunny island of Capri. Our last stop was a small province of Italy embedded in the mountainside. We thought it wouldn’t compare to the sights we had seen before, but it ended up being the talking point of our favorite part of our trip. Positano, Italy.

            Our taxi glided along the newly redone road. I leaned against my mother, sick from the long car ride and from inhaling too many croissants coated in chocolate.  The road was next to a cliff on both sides, and there was nowhere to look.

“We are almost here” said the taxi driver in a heavy Italian accent. I slowly sat up and peered out of the window. One side of the cliff had fallen, and in its place was a sweeping hill with tiny, brightly colored buildings in yellows and reds and blues and pinks. The bottom of the cliff reached down to a sparkling turquoise sea. The sea touched a beach of glimmering white sand, with picturesque umbrellas on the beach. It looked like a retouched postcard. The taxi zoomed into town, the streets curving in a calming way down the cliff. The taxi dropped me and my mom off in a small, blue and white bed and breakfast inn. It was quiet, but when we walked in the attendants greeted us as if we were the most important people in the world. They led us to our room, a pale yellow room with two twin beds with matching yellow flowered duvets. There was a balcony off of the room, carpeted blue with flowers decorating the whole terrace in hand made pots.

The beach sparkled and called to me, begging me to come down and play in the sea. My mother led me through the streets down to the seashore. We passed sweet smelling vendors calling out their products in Italian. Lemon leaves stretched out to us, perfuming the whole air with their scent. Side streets split off the cobbled main road, and fountains decorated the town center. My mother led me further down the road, and we passed under a bridge of flowers that grew in crisscross patterns.

The beach was flocked with people when we got down there. Children played in bathing suits and teens laughed and tanned with their friends. I ran immediately to the water. It greeted me with warm, open arms, and I dove underwater. I was still young enough to play mermaid. I pretended I had a shining fin of scales, and flipped in the water. The rocks were worn down and felt soft under my feet. I let the waves carry me to shore, and sat at the edge of the water and stared out the town. A temple stretched out to my far right, and at the very top of the hill I could see glowing lights. The cliff was jagged and covered in dark green moss in several places. Shops covered the rest of the Earth. I leaned back, and let the warm water rush over me and cover me head to toe. This was better than any of the “high class” places I’d ever been.