Positano, Amalfi Coast town

Positano is a World Heritage Site and a small town on the Amalfi Coast in the Campania region of Italy, and an important part of it. The town has charming coastal scenery and has become a must-visit place for tourists visiting the Amalfi Coast today. It sits on an enclave on the hills leading to the coast and is one of the few towns on the entire coast to have a sandy beach. There are countless viewing platforms on the Amalfi Coast Cliff Road. There are viewing platforms on the roads on the east and west sides of the town from which you can view the entire Positano. The first evidence of settlement in Positano dates back to the Paleolithic period, when the "La Porta cave" was frequented by gatherers and hunters. This small cave, located at 120 meters above sea level and just 10 meters from the road, despite its age, still allows to distinguish the terminal part and two niches. In 1955, Antonio Rademili, an archaeologist from the University of Pisa, organized several expeditions to determine the history of the prehistoric settlement, both on the surface and in some caves. During the excavations, some fossils emerged, some of which were shells of molluscs, while the fauna was represented by mammals such as: wild boar, goats, deer and deer, birds, remains of amphibians and fish. These findings allow archaeologists to speculate that the economic source of the people who frequented these caves was mainly the collection of molluscs, while the hunting of birds and mammals was quite limited. The first archaeological evidence dates back to the first century BC, when luxurious Roman villas were built on the coast of the Sorrento Peninsula. In Positano, one occupies the bay and the other extends to the Isola del Chino, a classic example of how even more hidden spaces were used on the village's pristine coast during the Claudian era, from 27 BC to AD 68. These villas are of the "scattered type", that is, they are composed of different structures that are not grouped together, and the buildings are separated by gardens. There is no documentary record of the owners of villas in the Roman period, but they were certainly the elite of society. The villa in Positano was first described in 1758 by Swiss engineer Karl Weber, who organized the excavations at Herculaneum, Pompeii and Stabiae, funded by King Charles III of Naples. Positano became a wealthy market port from the 15th to the 17th centuries, and its popularity grew over time. At that time they traded food such as fish and other resources. Positano was a port of the Amalfi Republic in the Middle Ages and flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, by the mid-nineteenth century the town had fallen into economic decline, and more than half of its population had emigrated, primarily to the United States. In the first half of the twentieth century, Positano was a relatively poor fishing village. In the 1950s it began to attract large numbers of tourists, especially after John Steinbeck published his article about Positano in Harper's Vogue in May 1953: Steinbeck wrote: Positano fascinated me, it was a dream place, not quite real while you were there, but becoming tantalizingly real after you left. #hotsummergoodplaces #overseastravel #Europetravel #Europeantown #Europeantownexploration #Europeantravel #Italy #Italiantravel #SouthernItaly #Coast #WorldHeritage #WorldHeritageTour