🇮🇹 Amalfi Coast – The Land of the Gods

THE AMALFI COAST

BOMERANO

We realised we made a great decision in booking an amazing Airbnb stay in a hinterland hilltop town on the Amalfi Coast called Bomerano in Agerola. The only problem was the white knuckle driving around hair pin bends and congested thin narrow busy roads in small hilltop towns where absolutely no road rules apply. Locals double park leaving room for only one car on a narrow two way street to pass, and whilst trying to judge your distance and thread your way through what feels like a busy ants nest every car next to you or in front of you has their own agenda pulling out, reversing, trying to overtake you or simply turn in front on you. If you don’t make the right move they honk you. Hesitate and they will pull out on you. Confidence is the key along with quick calm decision making. Rob’s got it covered or at least I hope and prey that he has. As a passenger It felt like I was watching the movie fright night. The locals here drive as if they are high on caffeine, risking everything. It didn’t help that the satnav decided at one point that it had a shorter path than the main road – one that involved going through backstreets and a tunnel that the car barely fit through. Once we made it through this scary maze of incomprehensible madness we realised we had arrived in a beautiful land.

A rural mountain top town where life takes on a slower pace of life even to the point where most shop keepers and restaurants close down for the winter. Each home is a farming property set with many vegetable gardens, chickens freely grazing, farm dogs barking and amazing valley, mountain and ocean views. The locals here were all very friendly and tried hard to help us work out our Bus tickets to travel to the many jaw dropping towns that sit quaintly on the Amalfi Coast line.

Most shops, businesses and even schools close from 2 – 4 pm for lunch where most people go home for lunch. We were really taken back at how the Italian folk value their 2 hour lunch breaks as part of good health and Longevity. They say that the locals here live long lives due to the pure clean mountain air and their home grown chemical free vegetables.

We made many striking memories here whilst exploring the Amalfi Coast. Many of our experiences involved us digging deep to overcome our own fear. We took risks, showed grit, persistence, support and surprised ourselves at our own new found hiking skills.

Our first adventure was when we went looking for the local bus stop. We thought we were lost only to have a local leave his road side business to casually show us that you just need to traipse down through a narrow gully overlooking a beautiful row of lemon trees and then you have million dollar views of the coast, follow the steep winding stairs and stand on the hair pin bend and the bus will stop. Wow!

AMALFI

On our first full day we found another bus stop in town and caught the bus to the town of Amalfi. The bus ride along the coast is not for the light hearted! Down the mountain full speed ahead, full of hair pin bends. I felt like a kid on a ghost train. Rob couldn’t bear to look out the window as it was a sheer drop as the Amalfi Coast road is made up of windy blind hair pin bends that hug the jaw dropping and deadly coast line. I was like a kid in a candy store not believing what I was seeing. Sensory overload but loving every minute of seeing grape vineyards on mountain slopes to dramatic coastline to buses honking to warn cars that they were coming around a blind bend, to bus on bus trying to pass each other on narrow cliff edges along with parked cars. I just held my breath. All I can say is we really are in the hands of the gods. My question is how do these skilled bus drivers of the Amalfi Coast develop their amazing skill set! Mmmm well we were told that to be a bus driver here you need to be born here. It is in your family blood. If you are a bus driver here your dad and grandad most probably were as well. Cheers to these highly skilled men who carry you safely around these dramatically dangerous and scary roads with such ease and confidence. We have watched them spin their steering wheels one handed whilst looking over their shoulders holding conversations with their local passengers. They have a honk language which is very distinct, it may warn cars or just be passing on a friendly hello or goodbye. All we could do was trust that they didn’t want to die. We made many trips on these buses over our 4 day adventures. We were so glad we visited in winter as we have heard that a 12 kilometre ride into town in summer can take up to 5 hours due to the roads being congested it only took us around 30 mins. We were so lucky to see so much in our 4 day stay.

In Amalfi we visited the medieval Cathedral called the Cathedral of Santi Andrea which had beautiful ceiling paintings. We walked through the narrow shopping streets sampling lemon gelato which was to die for. Many shops sell limoncello in beautiful bottles. Fruit stores are candy to the eye with their strings of garlics and dried chilli hanging like garden vines from the walls and ceilings. We celebrate our discoveries in this fairytale land with a funghi pizza (mushroom) and a beer. White stone washed houses array the cliff edge and the ocean danced calmly along the cliff face. Ferries don’t run in winter due to rough seas but today the ocean was calm and still.

 

RAVELLO

We jumped on a bus and headed off to Ravello. A hinterland town that sits high above the coast with must see views.

 

WALK OF THE GODS

On our second day we heading off for our planned hike. The Walk of the Gods which starts right in the town where we were staying. This was the reason we chose to stay in Agerola. A hike that starts 600m above the sea level. The path is said to be not for everyone but had great reviews. The path takes you along deep valleys carved by streams and millennial cliffs climbing up to 1400m, boundless chestnut woods along a network of winding donkey trails, old abandoned houses and farm land where grapes are grown and up cliff top which hold breathtaking magnificent views over the Amalfi Coast. But the day we went we had to turn back about half an hour in as when we hit the coast and stood on the cliff trail we nearly got blown over the edge. The winds were high, 43 km per hour deadly on shore winds so we headed back but found another hiking trail that was more sheltered that lead into the beautiful town of Praiano where colourful houses are set on the cliff edge overlooking the ocean. It was about a 2 hour hike down into Praiano and everything was sore. Down hill hiking isn’t easy on the thigh muscles. There were some scary moments as the winds were high but we couldn’t turn back and I said to Rob we didn’t come here to sit in our Airbnb, ‘we came to see the world’! Along this hike we saw caves and beautiful views but the weather wasn’t good but I am still glad we did it. It is a memory that we will always share and that is what travel is all about. In the back of my mind I still was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to complete the Walk of the Gods. But on our last day the sun shone and wind calmed and I smiled and we set off to finish what we had come here for, to walk the famous Walk of the Gods trail. A 9km Walk which should take 4h 30m. But Rob is going to tell this tale….

Our walk the previous day should have been a warning. It was steep in parts, not well marked and difficult in parts. We redid the first part of the Walk of the Gods with ease and were very pleased that the weather was in our favour. We enjoyed looking at the abandoned houses, craggy rocks jutting out into the nothingness and goats.  The first part has some narrowish sections – about as wide as a bed and then slopes down to the view. Not too bad. We rounded the corner and it gradually got worse. At several points you look up at a sloping craggy rockface with no discernible path. Many times the path is only about a ruler length wide (30cm) rock on your right and a sheer 1000m drop to your death on the left. Sheer drop. No railings and the ground is rocky. It was hell. I didn’t enjoy any of it. I think Kim is glad she went on the walk. I guess she doesn’t hate heights as much as me! We took four hours and eventually got to the village of Nocelle still high up in the mountains. We decided that we didn’t feel up to walking the 1500 steps down to Positano so we took a local bus.

 

POSITANO

Positano is at the opposite end of the Amalfi Coast. It is famed for its multicoloured houses.

We wandered down the cobbled lanes, dodging past workers dismantling Christmas decorations, peeking through the windows of shops closed til the summer and making our way past the hordes of Japanese tourists down to the beach.

 

The view was magnificent and we thought it would be easier to enjoy sipping a mojito and sharing a piece of apple pie.  So we did.  Then we caught the two buses back to our apartment (about 2 hours all up – although 20 mins away).  We had survived!

I have a little more info to tell regarding our once in a life time hiking explorations along the ancient donkey trails on the Walk of the Gods. Over 2 days on three trails we walked about 14 kms. My thigh muscles were in shock. The muscles in the thighs were sore for 3 days after the hikes. It felt like someone had got a meat mallet and had been madly trying to tenderise my under developed thigh muscles. After we got over how scary and how inspiring the view was on our walk we did some googling in to the safety of the hiking trail only to find that one newspaper articles had called it the Walk of Death as a Germany woman had dead falling off the high cliff. Now that we have hiked the path we both think that there needs to be more information regarding the dangers and it should have warnings signs regarding high winds and it should be marked for experienced hikers only. Funny thing was when we attended the walk for the first time about 20mins in high up on a trail on the side of the vineyards I see a man on a horse galloping towards us. Thinking there was nowhere for me to allow a horse to pass I was yelling to Rob run but the horse was coming at lightning speed so I just hugged my body into the cliff edge and hoped the horse wouldn’t kick me as it sped past!