India, June 29 -- The first time I visited the Amalfi Coast, around 15 years ago, I nearly laughed out loud at the sheer improbability of it. In Positano, I gazed up at the candy-coloured buildings stacked on top of each other, hewed into the mountains overlooking the sea, and the majolica-tiled dome of Santa Maria Assunta gleaming in the sunlight. What kind of mad genius could have created such a landscape? It seemed too beautiful to be real.

The Amalfi Coast is no stranger to myths and legends, both of the ancient variety and the more modern kind. One claims that the area's name originates from the love story between the demigod Hercules and a nymph named Amalfi. More recently, the coast had another dolce vita heyday in the 1960s, wit...