Take one beautifully hand cut stone stair, then multiply that by 300 and you have the stairs from our car to our accommodation on the Path of the Lemons. Multiply THAT by 1 ½ times and you have the stairs from Maiori back to the Path of the Lemons after a spectacular walk from Minori. Multiply THAT by 1 ½ times again and you have the stairs from Minori back to our accommodation, laden with groceries like pack mules. To say there are a lot of stairs is an understatement. To say we were shamed by very old ladies with bags of groceries gradually making their way up these stairs to go home in the evenings is also an understatement. We are reasonably fit, but it’s a gym/walking/hiking fitness that suits us well for everyday activities but falls seriously short when faced several times a day with these stairs. Luckily, admiring the views as they catch your eye through the groves of trees is a completely plausible reason to idle (and catch your breath).
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed (nearly) every single stair as every single stair exposed a new view of the coast and mountains. I am in awe of the locals for whom this is their “daily commute” and the understated fitness and vitality they show in simply going about their to day activities.
When booking our accommodation, the landlord mentioned that there were some stairs.
Our accommodation perches on the side of the mountain and just takes our breath away with the view. There is the vast, deep blue ocean and coastline below sweeping far off into the distance in both directions. Tiny towns tuck into the space between mountain and ocean and terracotta roofs creep up into terrace after terrace of shade cloth covered lemon trees.
Ravello, peeks out over the coast from it’s perch on the mountain to our right. The lights of Minori sprinkle below us. Our rooftop deck becomes the frame from which many of my memories of the Amalfi Coast are formed.
The Sentiero dei Limoni winds up high above the coastline following the natural curve of the mountain and connecting Minori to the larger Maiori. If offers the only way for some residents to reach their homes. Much of the path is foot traffic only. We pass pack mules being lead along the path laden with who knows what. Cats lie lazily in the sun-warmed cobbled stones. Many of the cats seem to belong to everyone rather than someone. Locals are amiable. Retaining walls are made up of old computer screens, keyboards and other household items.
The whole of the South is the scruffy and slightly weary neighbour of Northern Italy. But it’s the views that make the Path of the Lemons a treat for the senses. At every turn, a different aspect of the coastline, terracotta roofs, lemon terraces and mountains. Walking the path is quintessentially Amalfi.
From the lemons, Limoncello is manufactured in a small street, in a small, stone room nestled almost under the church bell tower in Minori. It boasts a few tables of people processing lemons by hand and the smell wafts out into the street on the evening air. You can purchase freshly made Limoncello here, but one would never know it since there is no advertising to be seen. We enjoy daily walks down the many, many stairs into Minori. We liked the look of the enormous, tourist-style, glass-fronted café on the water (owned by a famous Italian cooking show host). That is until a coach-load of American tourists showed up and turned it into the kind of place we avoid at all costs. So we visited the local gelateria in a back street, the local supermarket in the back street, the local butcher and fruit shop in the back street. We strolled along the beachfront boardwalk in the evenings with the locals. And we climbed back up the stairs with our groceries like the locals.
Of course, the Amalfi coast road is just spectacular, with vast views of the coastline opening up at every turn. You have plenty of time to enjoy the views since the road is also a carpark. A windy, sometimes dangerously-narrow carpark where you creep along in the off-season. I can imagine it would be a nightmare in the summer season. Small towns squished between the coastal cliffs and the mountains have lines of stationery cars waiting to drive through in both directions, on a road which was obviously designed originally for carts and horses not tourist buses and motorhomes. Parking is a stop-anywhere-and-hope-for-the-best affair which locals carry off with practiced nonchalance.
Each of these tiny little towns has a tiny little strip of sand, but there are very few actual beaches along the coast. In our experience, the little strip of sand is just a place for plastic bottles and other detritus to wash up on. No one seems to be bothered by it or to feel the need to clean it up. There again, it could just be an off-season thing and during peak summer season the whole of the South could get a spring clean for the tourists.
Nothing matters though, when I’m sitting on my rooftop deck watching the clouds mixing shadow patterns across the mountainside, tufts of smoke rising from little terracotta roofed houses and that ever changing ocean vista spread out below.
