Another hiking day, another awfully early morning. Did I mention I’m not a morning person? 7:30 out of bed, 8:15 out of the apartments, 8:30 we’re parked in the free parking downtown Agerola, right next to the beginning of the trail.
We stop at Caffetteria il Ritrovo for a ham (prosciutto) and provolone (I think) on freshly baked bread. The loaf of bread is enormous compared to the ham and cheese, but delicious and filling. Two cappuccinos on the side of that, and we’re fuelled up and ready to take the trail.
Traditionally, the Sentiero degli Dei is done by taking a slow, downhill walk to Nocelle, then down 1500 steps to Positano. We are unconventional people; doing the traditional hike would not do. We also had a car, so we needed to make our way back to it. Mostly it’s because we are unconventional and a tiny bit the car… I think.
We opted for doing a loop. Going up through an alpine variant up to Monte Tre Calli, then back down to Nocelle. Skipping the thousand steps from Nocelle to Positano, then back to our starting point through the Sentiero degli Dei, but in the opposite direction that most people do it.
The 500m ascent over 5km to Monte Tre Calli started with limited views for the first kilometre or so. It’s steps and mostly street walking. But once the trail proper begins, it’s non-stop beauty. Having never done the trail, we did what any newbie would: we stopped every couple of meters to take the exact same picture of the exact same valley, with the exact same town, but from ten meters higher. We want it to be different more than it really is. Since we were alone on the trail, and Karine took just as many pictures as I did, there’s nobody to confirm whether it’s just us who love the view and can’t stop taking photos, or if it’s common. I assume the latter, as it makes us seem normal rather than picture-taking nutbags.
After eight and a half kilometres, we arrived in Nocelle. Google Maps tells us there are two restaurants, and we stopped at the first one we met: Rifugio dei Mele. If the name conjures visions of refuge on a trail with rickety tables and a single host who’s been simmering a stew since morning, you couldn’t be more wrong. It’s a beautiful restaurant with a large terrace overlooking the ocean. Karine had a plate of handmade pasta with zucchini and local pecorino cheese. I had a warm seafood salad, which turned out to be a piece of swordfish with some mussels, shrimps and croutons thrown in. Both were delicious and exactly what we needed. It became an instant mandatory stop on that trail.
The return to the car was both shorter (5.6km) and a little more than half the total elevation gain (300m). We might have been alone on the outgoing leg, but we saw some crowds on the return leg of the hike. Of course, they were all going in the opposite direction from the two weirdos going uphill.
Hike done, we made our way to our hotel in Amalfi (about 2km outside of the city center). After a well-deserved and necessary shower, we headed out to Amalfi proper for gelato (Cioccolato Andrea Pansa makes a hell of a good chocolate gelato), day-drinking at the first terrace we found (not worth mentioning), and dinner at Taverna degli Apostoli.
We decided to go all out at Taverna degli Apostoli. Not every restaurant whose first greeting consists of: “here’s a menu, take a look at it, and know we’re cash only by the way” will attract customers. But the menu won us over, and a quick stop at the ATM around the corner solved the cash-only issue. The meal itself was well worth the money. I had melt-in-my-mouth octopus (slow-cooked in olive oil), followed by seafood pasta that is the pasta to beat for the rest of the trip. Karine had a beautiful burrata Caprese and magnificent lemon-pesto pasta that would have killed me. In a rare splurge, we ordered a secondi of seabass that was perfectly cooked and as soft as butter—a truly perfect meal at the end of a fabulous hike.
Tomorrow we’re off to our next apartment (hopefully with a quieter bed).