Il Postino: Procida and Salina

In the story, Pablo Neruda is exiled to a small island in Italy in 1950. The film puts his house and one of its two beaches at Pollara, on the northwest coast of Salina, and the sea stack Scoglio Faraglione appears in several scenes. Crews worked here from 18 April to 10 May 1994. The house is a private home, but you can go down to Pollara beach, below the huge cliff known as Il Costone. Fans have carried away so much sand and pebbles that the beach has been damaged.

Visitor guidance: The beach below the village is open; the house is private, and visitors are asked not to take sand or pebbles.

Corricella is the setting for waterfront scenes. This is where Mario, dissatisfied with being a fisherman like his father, shyly romances barmaid Beatrice, who works in her aunt's village café. The real bar, Bar La Taverna del Postino, stands on the seafront of this fishing village, a near-vertical warren of pastel-coloured houses linked by staircase streets. Procida was filmed from 11 to 23 May 1994, and a Corricella square is now named for Massimo Troisi.

Visitor guidance: The bar is on the Marina Corricella waterfront.

This village street climbs from the port to the pale yellow Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie and the fortified citadel of the Terra Murata. In the film it is where the corrupt politician exhorts the locals to vote for Di Cosimo, who in the story is the politician in office with the Christian Democrats.

Visitor guidance: A public street; it leads on up to the Terra Murata citadel.

At the top of Via San Rocco, the small Piazza dei Martiri is named for the twelve inhabitants of Procida executed during the Neapolitan revolution of 1799. The exterior of a building on the square doubled as the post office where Mario collects post for the exiled poet. In the story he is hired as a temporary postman, with Neruda as his only customer.

Visitor guidance: A public square; the old post office building looks brightly restored.

One of the two beaches used in the film lies on Procida's northwest coast, in the Cottimo district. Locals call it the Postino beach, and since 2010 the street leading to it has been named Via della Spiaggia del Postino. The film ends with Neruda walking on the beach where he used to talk with Mario.

Visitor guidance: Ask for the Postino beach; it is on Procida's northwest coast.