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A Ramble Along the Amalfi Coast

By Mark and Kristen Stebnyckyj, Piccolo Tours

We arrived in Sorrento with high expectations, having been told that this is one of the most beautiful stretches of coast in the Mediterranean. W e weren't disappointed. We took the local rail network, the Circumvesuviana, from Naples to Sorrento to start our seven-day walking trip. Our first hotel was  a villa with its own private beach just outside the center of town. Perched on a cliff top, removed from the hustle and bustle of Sorrento, it was a perfect place to start our walking tour – from its tiled floors and old-fashioned service to its fabulous views out over the bay.  

If the first night was any indication, we were confident that the rest of our holiday would be a great success. Our walking tour had been organized by Gillian Arthur through her tour company. Gillian is an Australian who has lived in Italy for more than 15 years and has an intimate knowledge of the country – its history, people, food and wine.  

We had chosen a seven-day self guided walking tour of the Amalfi Coast. We were provided with detailed instructions and maps of well researched walking routes which allowed us to walk independently and set our own pace. We chose the destination, standard of accommodation and picked our own dates. Gillian expertly handled all the travel arrangements as well as providing excellent information about the local area, including where to eat and drink, things to do and what to see.

After a good night's sleep and breakfast we were ready to face the rigors ahead – our first walk. We were met in the lobby by our guide for the day, genial Giovanni Vissetti. Giovanni turned out to be a fount of knowledge.

Born in Massa Lubrense, a small village just down the road, he also is a cartographer and keen walker who is responsible  for mapping all of the walking trails on the Sorrento Peninsula. The trails here are all color-coded and marked with individual terracotta tiles – a true labor of love.

We couldn't have had a better introduction to the region. For our first day Giovanni took us up to Monte Constanzo from where there were panoramic views of the Amalfi coast and the Bay of Jeranto. From there we wandered on through shady pine woods down to Punta Campanella, where we got our  first glimpse of the legendary island of Capri. Lunch was the highlight of the day; we stopped at a tiny trattoria, more a shop than an eatery, run by friends of Giovanni, a woman named Titina and her husband.

We lunched outside in the shade of a multi-layered gazebo, typical of the region, with olives, lemons and vines cultivated on top of each other and all supported by a single chestnut pergola. Titina runs the only shop in the village which sells everything from salami to shampoo. She also puts on the odd lunch but only on request. She piled our plates with the insalata caprese – the freshest, softest mozzarella and firm, luscious tomatoes from her garden, dripping with extra-virgin olive oil, with a few basil leaves scattered on the top, unlike anything you find outside Campania.

She followed this with plates of home-made sausage, prosciutto, salami accompanied by home-made pickles,  eggplant, artichoke, olives, capsicums and tiny sweet onions. I was already feeling remarkably full when she  presented an enormous plate of Gnocchi Sorrentina; tiny, light potato dumplings in a sauce made of fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. To finish off we ate huge chunks of caciocavallo, a strong flavored cheese produced in the village. This feast was washed down by copious quantities of home-made wine. 

Titina would have been positively insulted if we had run off without trying some of her potent home brew,  limoncello  In the afternoon we walked on to the very tip of the promontory where we come across the remains of a Saracen tower. The whole coastline is dotted with such structures; built originally as watchtowers, they were the main line of defense against marauding pirates in days gone by.

The Emperor’s Beloved Isle

The following morning was a perfect day, sunny with a slight breeze. We headed across the water along with all other tourists to the magical island of Capri. Having seen no-one the day before, landing at the main dock in Capri was something of a shock.

It has been claimed that Capri is the most beautiful island in the Mediterranean, and this is definitely not a secret. Masses of tourists arrive in Capri everyday, mainly to ride the funivia to the small village of Capri and to take a boat trip to the famed Blue Grotto. However, for tourists like us, intent on exploring the island by foot, we virtually had  the place to ourselves once we got away from the dock.

We started our exploration by taking a stroll to Villa Jovis, the most important of the 12 Roman villas on the island. The history of this place is fascinating. Tiberius governed the Roman Empire from here during  the last 10 years of his life; he loved Capri so much that he never returned to Rome after moving here. No wonder the empire went to pot.

There's a lot of notoriety surrounding Tiberius, and while much of it is probably exaggerated, he certainly earned his two  nicknames: “Biberius,” due to his love of imbibing the local wine, and the “Old Goat of Capri” due to his lurid erotic exploits.

From here we wandered on to the Faraglioni, three enormous sheer-sided limestone pinnacles, shooting straight out of the sea. Along the way we stopped at a great place for lunch where we had stuffed pasta in walnut sauce, fresh salad and cold white wine. No crowds here either as the restaurant was accessible only on foot.

Our route then took us down endless steps to the Grotta Matromania. Capri must be the place for shocking legends; apparently it was in these caves that the Romans came to worship the goddess Cybele, carrying out noisy orgiastic rituals that ended with the self castration of the priest.

As we were feeling energetic we took the option of walking up the Scala Fenicia, 800 stone steps of Greek and Roman origin. At the top we visited the villa and gardens of Villa Michele, residence of the Swedish physician and humanitarian Axel Munthe. (No lurid legends connected with this site, you'll be relieved to hear.)

We returned on foot to the port and picked up our hydrofoil to Positano. Here our base was an idyllic white villa with magnificent views  set amongst lush Mediterranean vegetation. What no one tells you about Positano is that everything is up endless flights of steps – our hotel was no exception.

Another perfect day began as we breakfasted on the terrace, high up above Positano. Guido arrived with his taxi to take us on a hair-raising drive right up into the mountains to Agerola. This is the other side of the Amalfi coast, a world away from Positano. The village seemed virtually untouched by the 21st century – a few dusty shops selling cheese, strings of hot peppers and garlic, surrounded by a glorious landscape of craggy peaks dropping down to hillsides filled with lemon groves, olive trees and vineyards.

Our trail was aptly called Sentiero degli Dei, or Path of the Gods, and was probably the most beautiful and certainly the most dramatic walk of the week. The trail followed the contours of the mountains and seemed suspended above the sea below. As we walked we came across donkeys and mules carrying loads of chestnut poles and hay back to the village. It was amazing to realise that these animals still provide the only form of transport in these hills. It was hard to believe that we were so close to civilization.

All along the trail there were magnificent views of the Amalfi coast, Capri and smaller islands. We ate at particularly good restaurant in the tiny village of Montepertuso. “Donna Rosa” certainly lived up to its reputation and the fresh seafood was outstanding.  After a magnificent lunch we decided to leave the panoramic stone stairways for another day and took the bus all the way downhill into Positano – painless! 

On to Amalfi Itself 

The following morning Guido arrived once again to whisk us away. Our next destination was Amalfi just 15 kilometers (nine miles) along the coast.

Driving along the Amalfi coast road is a thrill or a nightmare, depending on your reaction to such things: huge tour buses inching past each other; reversing around hairpin bends  with a sheer cliff face on one side and  a spectacular drop into the ocean on the other. I had to admire the skill and nerves of the bus drivers as they negotiated blind corners with absolutely no margin for error. I came to the conclusion that the drivers seem to relish such  situations; the worse it got the cooler they became. I have to put that  down to some type of Italian machismo.

We got out at Amalfi, while Guido took our bags on to Ravello, our base for the next three nights. Amalfi was the starting point for our next walk. We wandered through  the town, looking into the cathedral along the way. The building is very Spanish is style, reflecting Amalfi's history of trade with Spain. The streets are lined with shops selling limoncello, garlic and strings of peperoncino (labeled as the natural alternative to Viagra!).

Amalfi  was once also famous for paper production, so before starting the walk we visited one of the oldest  paper mills still in operation. Around mid morning  we started up the Valle dei Mulini, or Valley of the Mills. It was an easy trail that passed ruined mills and tumbling streams, beautifully cool and shady. We emerged a couple of hours later at the small village of Minuta. 

By now of course it was time for lunch so we stopped at a tiny trattoria in the village. Here everything was served with lemon; mozzarella served on lemon leaves with a lemon dressing – pasta with lemon sauce, lemon gelato and even fresh lemonade if you wanted (we opted for some cool white wine). After all this we roused ourselves to continue onto Ravello, which luckily wasn't far away. It really is a panoramic town and from our balcony at our hotel, we had views in all directions, with the mountains on one side and the Bay of Naples on the other. I couldn't have asked for more.

The next morning we decided to skip walking and have an easy day seeing the sights of Ravello. There is loads of history here as the town dates back to Roman times. For such a small place it also has a surprising amount of Medieval art.

In the morning we explored the two famous gardens, both very different. Villa Cimbrone is a romantic wilderness with breathtaking views, laid out by an Englishman in 1819 and  frequented by the Bloomsbury set, including Virginia Woolf. The other, Villa Rufolo, a semi-tropical paradise with an 11^th-century palace. According to the plaque at the front gate, this garden became the setting of the magic garden in Wagner's Parsifal. After lunch we looked into the magnificent cathedral San Pantaleone, which is an intriguing mixture of Arabic and Byzantine styles with  beautiful 12th-century bronze doors.

A Vinicultural Road less Taken

Later in the afternoon, we went to a wine tasting session at the local enoteca; the wines were excellent, although I have to confess that most of the grape varieties I had never heard of. As Ghino. the owner, explained, Campania has never jumped on the bandwagon of planting international varietals and has instead opted for championing its indigenous grape varieties, such as Falanghina, Greco, Piedirosso and Aglianico. We finished the session with a glass of Taurasi, a complex, full-bodied red wine with lots of tannin, understandably called the  Barolo of the South. 

Our last day and it was hard to decide whether to take the long or short option. One of the advantages of this walking trip was that we were often provided both a long and short option, so we could tailor our walking each day depending on how we were feeling. We walked from Ravello to Scala, one of the oldest of the Amalfi towns, which had a couple of churches I wanted to see.

The trail to Scala was very scenic. It skirted the valley and took us through a beautiful beech and chestnut forest. In Scala we stopped for a cappuccino and then headed onto Valle delle Ferriere, which is one of the great natural parks in the region. The path was well-marked path and maintained by CAI, the Alpine Club of Italy. We wandered along happily looking for the familiar red and white stripes.  

It was quite strenuous at times as the trail took us up into the rugged hinterland of the Lattari Mountains. Although never far from civilization, we felt as though we were in a  different world of remote woodland and magnificent mountains. We stopped for our picnic at Bosco Grande, enjoying the magnificent viewpoint of the valley below. We sat eating  our food and drinking a bottle of  local wine, enjoying the peace all around and feeling so contented at the end of a marvelous week of walking on the Amalfi coast.