With little villages snuggled into coves along the Mediterranean shore and mountains in the background towering over them, the Amalfi Coast is a place people dream of…….until now. Mobs of sneaker-wearing, camera-toting tourists and cruise ship passengers are forcing outraged locals to barricade themselves in their homes. Postcard towns along the coast have become more of a stampede nightmare than a sweet refuge. Positano is one of the small villages that has been inundated — everyone touching, shoulder to shoulder, half the people going up and half coming down a narrow passageway. For city officials, the summer tourist boom is a welcome sight because of the money they drop while there on vacation. Meanwhile, residents say tourists are destroying the luxurious image of the Amalfi Coast, pointing to the influx of cruise ships as the reason for the uncontrollable crowds. “We have reached our limit,” a resident wrote on Facebook. “As citizens, we have to lock ourselves inside our homes because we still haven’t learned how to fly.” However, the current Amalfi mayor, Daniele Milano, maintains that local authorities can't block cruise ships or bar passengers from making landfall. Still, he recognizes that more can and should be done to protect the region from congestion and to guard both locals and visitors from the adverse effects of excessive tourism.
