![Amore looks like this: the view from Casa Angelina in Positano, on Italy's Amalfi Coast.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170817110704/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/v/r/6/4/image.related.afrWideArticleLead.940x529.gxuumf.png/1502797739015.jpg)
There's a certain pressure one feels when jetting off on honeymoon. Are we being romantic enough? If we quarrel is the whole marriage doomed? How much is too much when posting cheesy honeymoon snaps to social media?
A holiday in Positano on Italy's Amalfi coast is made for apprehensive honeymooners like us. As John Steinbeck wrote from Positano in 1953 for Harper's Bazaar, (or more precisely, from his suite at the iconic Le Sirenuse hotel): "It is a dream place that isn't quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone."
For it's all very romantic.
Romance is in that first glimpse of the higgledy-piggledy array of salmon and terracotta-hued buildings perched precariously on the cliffs. It's in calling out ciao to the leathery old men sitting together by the side of the road in companionable silence.
![Casa Angelina, a luxury boutique hotel in Praiano, is 4km west of Positano. The town is less touristy but the vista is ...](http://web.archive.org./web/20170817110704/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/v/r/6/f/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1502684817517.jpg)
It's in becoming fearless of the motorcycles that zoom past on the narrow roads, and in feasting on spaghetti vongole. In creating new rituals of a caffè and cornetti every morning and walking it off by hauling weary legs up hundreds of cobblestone stairs. It's in diving into that bluest of blue waters and just floating there.
It's in the loveliness of the purple bougainvillea that winds its way around balconies and ledges to star in a thousand photos you take. A dreaminess that even jostling crowds of tourists walking slowly in front of you can't ruin.
Yes, romance is easy in Positano.
A lot of this can be put, quite simply, down to all the eating.
Our driver, who presses furiously on the accelerator on the windy road to Positano, past roadside stalls selling dried chillies and enormous lemons, says the best food in Italy is on the Amalfi Coast. He rubs his rotund belly and laughs, "See?"
![Casa Angelina makes the most of the Amalfi Coast's stunning vistas.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170817110704/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/v/v/j/x/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1502690830713.jpg)
He could be correct. In a little more than a week our pizza count climbs perilously high. We drizzle good olive oil onto buffalo mozzarella and hunks of chewy bread. We eat marmellata croissants every morning because nothing feels quite as holiday-like at that. At 4pm comes the biggest daily decision of our honeymoon: which flavour gelato to choose. (The best in Positano can be found at the Gelateria Buca di Bacco , behind the umbrellas on the main beach. And may we recommend the pistachio flavour?)
Favourite meal
A favourite meal is one that nearly doesn't happen. We call and call and call the restaurant everybody says we must go to, Da Adolfo, until finally someone answers the telephone. Along with other eager couples, we're picked up in a boat from the main beach for the 10-minute trip to Laurito Beach, where the restaurant has stood since 1966. One couple tell us they couldn't get through on the phone so they kayaked over one morning to make a booking.
The staff here are flirty old hands, the menu is what's good that day plus staples like the baked mozzarella on lemon leaves and the mussels in tomato sauce. The fish is fresh, the house wine with peaches is sweet and everybody in the restaurant is a little drunk and merry by the end of the afternoon.
![A private balcony at Casa Angelica, where everyone seems to be in love – it's not hard to see why.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170817110704/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/1/3/1/1/k/h/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1502686614871.jpg)
At Da Vincenzo in Positano we eat grilled octopus, and at Saraceno d'Oro, near Fornillo beach, it's like we're eating nonna's cooking. Drinks at Franco's Bar, next to Le Sirenuse, offer a sweeping postcard view of Positano and a glamorous crowd. An Aperol spritz and a glass of champagne is easy admission to the high life.
We revel in the amore with our stay at Casa Angelina. It's in Praiano, four kilometres west of Positano. It's sleepier here, and less touristy. Positano twinkles in the distance at night.
The chic 39-room boutique hotel is cut into the cliffside. Inside, all is white and open plan, with floor-to-ceiling windows framing the blue majesty of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Unlike much other accommodation in the region, it's slick and modern. There's no pottery, or pink curtains, and certainly not a Virgin Mary in sight. The details are perfectly thought of in the L'Occitane bathroom products, the Bang & Olufsen telephone, the crisp Etro cotton sheets, the bleached blonde furniture. Bolts of colour are provided in the slightly surreal Murano glass sculptures by Cuban artist Alfredo Sosabravo dotted around the hotel.
An arched window in our sleek room opens out onto our own private balcony. It is here we recline on lounge chairs and admire the view of the limitless horizon, feeling cocooned together and like anything is possible.
![The chic 39-room hotel is cut into the cliffside.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170817110704/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/v/s/c/2/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1502686448518.jpg)
We sit by the pool on the terrace under the shade of lemon trees and drink cocktails brought by attentive staff. Fellow guests loll in the sun. Everybody seems to be in love.
Breakfast is served in the Un Piano Nel Cielo (floor in the sky) restaurant and it is hard to not become the Augustus Gloop character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when faced with such an array of cold cuts, eggs, pastries, cakes and pancakes how you like them, accompanied with a plunger of perfect coffee – or champagne, if you fancy it. The prized tables are by the railing where the vista of the sea and the mountains is endless.
Yes, romance is everywhere.
On a rather more energetic day we set out on the Path of the Gods, a hike from the town of Bomerano to Nocelle, above Positano (catch a taxi or take one of the infrequent buses to Amalfi and then swap to the Bomerano bus). It's an eight-kilometre walk along the top of the world past herds of goats and incredible rock formations. A warning: there are 1700 steps at the end. Here, romance is a new husband ignoring the tantrums of a tired woman who dramatically declares that she cannot go on, patiently coaxing her with the promise of a lemon slushie at the end.
![Breakfast in the hotel's aptly named Un Piano Nel Cielo (floor in the sky) restaurant.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170817110704/http://www.afr.com/content/dam/images/g/x/v/r/6/q/image.imgtype.afrArticleInline.620x0.png/1502685172738.jpg)
It is also on honeymoon that one realises romance is not in the best table at the clifftop restaurant (though that is nice) or being serenaded by an accordion player, or an aperitif as you watch the sun rage into pinks, reds and oranges.
Not really. Rather, it is sitting together quietly like any old couple, content in each other's company. It's patience with the other's haphazard map reading, and letting them have the last bite of tiramisu.
It's being so happy that they're here in this dream place with you, because isn't everything better when they are?
The writer stayed at Casa Angelina as a guest of the hotel.
NEED TO KNOW
- Casa Angelina Via Gennaro Capriglione 147, Praiano, Italy. Rooms from $1100 a night including breakfast. Tel: +39 089 813 1333. For more see Casa Angelina.
- Getting there The closest airport to Positano is Naples International Airport, about 80 minutes' drive away. Alitalia operates four flights daily from Rome to Naples.