But it’s not too hard to find a good meal particularly if you like seafood

But it’s not too hard to find a good meal, particularly if you like seafood.I decided to stroll along the beach early on my last morning in Positano. As I walked, I wondered grumpily where that seafood had come from After all, I’d seen no fishermen I had not found Signor Capraro. Perhaps the twisted economics of our global village made it cheaper for the restaurateurs of Positano to import their fish from Indonesia or some such place.But then I saw him: a lone figure on a small boat chugging slowly towards the harbour Signor Capraro! Lobster pots were stacked on the deck. There is an easy elegance about the town and, indeed, its residents It is expensive, though. I had considered staying at Le Sirenuse, which was Steinbeck’s choice In the Fifties, it was a stately villa with rooms to let Now it’s a very upmarket hotel with fiendish rates. To stay there would be not so much to push the boat out as to point it at Capri with a brick resting against the throttle. Positano today is crowded with well-spoken visitors in straw hats and linen trousers.

They clatter up and down the town’s steep thoroughfares and along its dark beach. “It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you’ve gone.” Perhaps because he felt that Positano was “never likely to attract the organdie-and-white tourist”, Steinbeck submitted to Harper’s an account so glowing that it triggered a sudden, and so far unabated, surge of interest His prophecy was flat-out wrong. If Steinbeck could see it now, he might have wished that he’d trusted his first instinct. “Nearly always,” he wrote, “when you find a place as beautiful as Positano, your impulse is to conceal it.”Despite the crowds, Positano remains a deeply seductive place. And Steinbeck was delighted to find in Positano a cast of characters every bit as eccentric as those who populate his Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat: the occasionally communist mayor; the paranoid shoemaker who becomes the confidant of great men; and the healer who, from his beachside perch, takes away the ills of the town.”Positano bites deep,” Steinbeck wrote. He might have been relieved to find respite from the “deafening, screaming, milling, tyre-screeching mess which is ordinary Italian highway traffic” There is no traffic in Positano There can’t be: the streets are steps cut into the cliff.

It is one of the few places in Italy free from the endless buzz of scooters and small Fiats. South Tyrolean food is similar – schlutzkrapfen is another ravioli dish. Many restaurants serve more international food and there’s usually a pizzeria nearby.In terms of drink, beer lovers will find plenty to choose from: the Huber brewery in St Johann puts out a good range. Other typical mains include gr? (fried onion, bacon, pork or veal and potato), schlipfkrapfen (ravioli-like parcels filled with meat and/or potato) and bauernsch?rnes (lamb seared with fried onion rings, braised and then cooked with red wine and potatoes until tender). Tiroler leber is veal or beef liver with onions, cured ham, lemon juice and wine.Kaiserschmarrn are thick pancakes shredded, sprinkled with icing sugar and served with jam or stewed fruit – so named because they were a favourite of Emperor Franz Josef II. Although this dish sounds like a dessert, it often appears as a main course.

More conventional “puddings” include apple strudel, cremeschnitten (mille feuille, Austrian-style) and weinegelee – wine jelly with fruit, usually red or blackcurrants. The dumpling (kn?) is ubiquitous in the Tyrol, and kn?n come in a multitude of sizes and flavours, for example, kasspatzln – little dumplings with molten cheese and a sprinkling of fried onions; spinatkn? – spinach dumplings; and speckkn?, dumplings with cured ham. Traditional starters include soups such as frittatensuppe (clear, with shredded pancake) and kohlrabisuppe (the kohlrabi vegetable looks like a turnip, but tastes more like broccoli). For the South Tyrol, try the Italian State Tourist Board at 1 Princes Street, London W1B 2AY (020-7408 1254; www.enit.it) or go straight to South Tyrol Information (00 39 0471 999999; www.suedtyrol.info).SEALED WITH A SCHNAPPSTyrolean cooking is hearty, but vegetarians and those whose dietary requirements forbid pork will be disappointed to hear that many dishes make use of one bit of pig or another. A range of local zone, regional and “all Tyrol” tickets is offered, including weekly passes.