Most everyone who visits the Amalfi Coast raves about its beauty, rugged coastline, and quaint towns. I will grant you these things. We brought with us a book which describes how to get from town to town on walking trails. Based on this book we planned to walk from Ravello (pretty high up) down to Amalfi (at the coast). It was described as a leisurely walk through olive groves and lemon groves winging your way down to the seaside. Sounded like a perfect day to us.
An early morning tease from our deck
But we had a different experience. We should have heeded the omen at the start of our excursion. Disembarking the ship there were large swells so getting on the tender (tiny boat to transfer you from the ship to shore) was quite difficult, requiring an Olympic level broad jump to get from ship to tender. After a woozy trip to shore, we got on a bus to Ravello. Back and forth and up the mountainside did not help my wooziness. And once in Ravello, it thundered and rained. Maybe we should have taken the bus back down to Amalfi and called it a day.
Once the rain stopped, walking the town was quite nice. After some photos and fresh air, we found the starting point for our leisurely walk down to the seaside.
Quaint cobble-stoned walkways, glistening from the recent rain
A few moments in we got some directional help from this kindly gentleman.
Spoke no English and carried funky vegetables, helpful none the less.
A couple of moments later we knew we were in trouble. The great descent had begun. Staircase after staircase, step after step, we descended. These weren’t your garden variety steps, they were steep, cobble-stoned steps, designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain to the sole and ankle.
Our ship, so close yet so far.
An hour later, we were finally at the end, so we thought. We now traversed up and down through “quaint” villages on our way to Amalfi. When we finally did reach Amalfi, we were too tired (or maybe annoyed) to enjoy it. We just high-tailed it to the tender and back to the safety of the ship.
The moral of this story? Do not buy this book (Sorrento Amalfi Capri Car tours and walks by Sunflower Books). It lies. And, never trust a single source again.
Remember, its all about the light, sore feet or not.
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