Inside Sirenland, the Tony Writers' Retreat at Positano's Le Sirenuse ... - Air Mail

In the summer of 1953, John Steinbeck, following the exhortations of his friend Alberto Moravia, hired a driver named Bassani Bassano and braved the heat (and the Italian traffic) to travel to Positano from Rome, where he was living at the time. It left an impression. "Positano bites deep," he wrote in a column that appeared in Harper's Bazaar later that year. "We went to the Sirenuse, an old family house converted into a first class hotel, spotless and cool, with grape arbors over its outside dining rooms."

Exactly 70 years later, the hotel is still first-class, still spotless and cool, and still run by the same Sersale family. One has the distinct impression that not much changes at Le Sirenuse.