If you don't follow Nicki and Carlo on YouTube, well, you should! Nicki Positano (as she is known) has been posting amazing videos about their Positano life for nearly 20 years. Their home is tucked high above Positano on the cliffs of the Amalfi Coast. The road is 465 steps below their home (where their car is parked), while their scooter is parked a few hundred steps above in Montepertuso. Depending on which vehicle they need, they have quite a trek either up or down. They grow most of their own food, kayak in the sea below and take walks on the paths in the forest, passing dizzying cliffs and vistas. Their two dogs are constant companions: sweet Holly and her wilder pal, Indy. 

You can read about the Positano Diaries in Nicki Positano: True-Life Videos of Living the Dream on the Amalfi Coast.

Buying a new home in Tuscany was not an easy task for Nicki and Carlo. There were lots of houses toured and considered; negotiations taking months, the slow-moving legal Italian bureaucracy to navigate, and then trying to get the previous owners out of the house!

This move was a romantic dream for Nicki, but for Carlo the appeal was being able to drive a car right up to their new front door. Watch their Positano Diaries videos to find out how difficult to get things up to their house! Even donkeys with backpacks are used! I love watching Carlo's face fill with joy and amazement every time a delivery truck pulls right up to their new Tuscan home.

Is this their forever home? Are they going to sell their Positano home? Will they find the locals friendly? Will they renovate the house themselves?

You'll just have to watch for yourself. Here's a link to their Tuscan Diaries Playlist.

Say Ciao to Nicki and Carlo for me.

--Jerry Finzi

Amazing video (some by drone) of divers jumping from the bridge over the the
Furore Fiord on the Amalfi Coast.

Click on the photo to see the video.

When traveling through the Amalfi Coast, we can't help but wonder, "Who lives up there? How do they deal with all those steps? How do you even get up there?" You'll see houses precariously clinging to a cliff edge with no indication of how you even get to the house from the road above--or below--and how you would even get your groceries to your door. Anyone who has done even a little trekking and walking would be familiar with the old donkey paths and countless steps that link these communities, up and down the mountain and from hamlet to village.  Consider what it must be like to live a workaday life in towns like Positano, Amalfi Town, or the not so famous towns of Furore, Priano, Nocelle, Montepertuso, San Lazzaro, San Michele or Scala (even its name means staircase). The YouTube videos of Nicki Positano takes a look behind the curtain of what it's like to live as an expat in Italy and on the Amalfi Coast...

Although I've experienced what it's like to be an expat living in another country (France), I've never lived in Italy and am amazed at how people need to adjust to the quirks of not only government and social customs, but also with the extreme geology of the place... hills, heat, narrow roads, tiny cars, compact living quarters and perhaps even dodging the enormous tourist throngs that "invade" during the peak season. 
As GVI's mascot, La Bocca della Verita demands, we always look for truths about Italy, and we've found amazing truths in the wonderful, funny, informative and completely entertaining videos of Nicki Positano. Nicki is a British expat who has lived in Positano for nearly 20 years with her husband, Carlo and daughter Sky. Nicki speaks fluent Italian but the local dialect is still an effort for her. They live in a house that is 465 steps down from the road above. Their life is beautiful, difficult at times, but fulfilling nonetheless--like Italy itself.

Watching Nicki's videos and learning the intimate details about life on the Amalfi Coast--and in Italy--has become a family event in our home. We gather around our large screen smart TV, pop open the YouTube app and call up one of Nicki's videos. Our son loves Nicki's ever-present four-legged companion Holly, even riding on the foot board of her scooter as she does her daily errands.

It's like watching both through a window and through Nicki's eyes. She shoots many videos using a selfie-stick while walking along with her rapid-fire dialog flowing, never missing a beat to give a detailed account of the activity at hand. She's a damned good reporter, presenter and videographer.

Her videos include all sorts of activities: hikes up on the mountain, kayaking, meeting up with friends, taking out the trash, attending local festivals, or buzzing around the treacherous Amalfi roads on her two-wheeler while heading to another one of her wedding or magazine assignments (she's a make-up artist in high demand). Whether it's going to the cemetery on Halloween night (oddly beautiful), following the aftermath of a torrential flood or forest fire, going shopping with a friend, hiking the Path of the Gods, chilling at home with her teenage daughter or whipping up a simple lunch, you'll fall in love with Nicki's videos--and learn an enormous amount about living in Italy.

The high quality of her 4K videos (she uses a GoPro for kayaking and skiing, and Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark II for walking) paired with a large screen, HD-TV gives us the feeling like we are walking the paths with Nicki--you can almost smell those Amalfi lemons and bougainvillea.

Thanks for sharing your lifestyle with us, Nicki...

Subscribe to Nicki Positano Videos HERE.

--GVI