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...... But there is another side to the Amalfi Peninsula.
Away from the road is a network of footpaths which thread through the steep
limestone peaks of the peninsula’s spine. Some are marked on the 1:25.000 maps;
others can be only found by searching for the darker vein of a track on a
hillside.
A number of these paths have been linked together to form an eight-day
walk from one end of the peninsula to the other. The route is identified by red
and white dashes painted on trees and rocks.
Giovanni Visetti knows this route better than most.
He left Naples as a teenager and joined the
Merchant Navy, visiting Brazil, Mexico, the USA, South America and Southeast
Asia.
He has now returned home and devotes his time to the Amalfi peninsula. So
detailed is Visetti's knowledge of Massa Lubrense that the local council
recently asked him to compile a catalogue and map of public footpaths.
We met Visetti at the village of Colli di Fontanelle.
He is fit, intense and knowledgeable. During a long day, we walked the final
section on a succession of footpaths which wove downwards towards the rocks of
Punta Campanella. The path stayed high, straying over an occasional summit which
provided views north to Naples and the cone of Vesuvius, and south across the
Bay of Salerno.
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Off shore, we could see the black shark-fin profiles of the
Galli islands. Between the neat stone terraces of olive trees sprouted the arms
of prickly pear cacti. About our feet grew clumps of heather and genista,
whose blue berries are used to make a liqueur called mirto. Leaving the
village of Torca on an unusually well-kept path, Visetti explained that for
decades this has been used by three brothers who have walked barefoot daily from
Torca to their fishing boats 300m down the cliff. The eldest of the brothers, 'o
Surdo (The Deaf), was still making the hike at the age of 86.
Walking the Amalfi coast, you’ll pass 50 watchtowers.
In medieval times they were used to warn of approaching enemy vessels. There is
a tower at Punta Campanella, currently being restored by stonemasons. Beside it
stands the stump of the old brick lighthouse, which exploded in the 1960s, after
a gas leak. Beside the tower, we crossed a section of Roman pavement and traces
of a Roman wall. Beyond the rocks, the island of Capri floated on a raft of
salty haze. Didn't this glorious place become crowded in the summer? Visetti
shook his head: "No, you see you must walk to reach this place."
from
the article Out on a limb - by Nicholas Crane -
photo by Peter Inglis - World
Magazine June 1991
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