Italy - The Path of the Gods

The town of Agerola is about a twenty-minute walk from our villa, and the journey is a decent cardiovascular workout complete with a constant ascent and periods of intense exertion from the steep steps.  Thankfully, the surrounding views help take the focus away from all the work, and once the summit is reached, the streets of Agerola are mostly level but narrow and full of careening cars.  In my permanent position at the rear of our family walking line, I’ve attempted to give my fears over to the Lord as I’ve time and again watched speeding side mirrors and bus walls come within inches of my wife and children as we walk along and hug the stucco buildings.  Trekking to the markets in this area has been more difficult than any other place we’ve stayed so far, and we try to make each trip count by planning every meal and making comprehensive lists, but we still manage to forget things.  All of that careful planning is useless if the whole town shuts down on Friday afternoons and hapless visitors are unaware of this local tradition, as was our case yesterday, when we wandered into the empty square.

Bomerano, which is a small sub-community of Agerola, borders the main square in town, and it contains the trailhead of the Path of the Gods, a section of which we had planned to hike that day, followed by grocery shopping before returning home.  The Path of the Gods or, Il Sentiero degli Dei as they say in these parts, is an internationally famous nine-kilometer hiking trail that connects the towns of Agerola and Positano with scenery worthy of...well, the gods, I guess.

We filled our water bottles at the community fountain and followed the arrows down narrow cobblestone streets winding through old two-story stucco villas, small vineyards, and vegetable gardens until we left the town limits behind and entered the realm of the gods.  A local guy told us that the markets would open again for an hour before sunset, so Deena hiked with us for about a kilometer or so and decided to turn back fearing we would miss our opportunity for food.  The kids and I hiked for a few more kilometers staring at one natural wonder after another, and we probably could have gone a little farther, but we kept stopping to take pictures.  Rather than do an injustice to the views to which we were treated on that special afternoon, maybe these pictures will help tell the tale better than my narrative:

We met up with Deena back in the town square and told her all the tales from our adventures on the Path of the Gods.  She had managed to find one open market, but it didn’t stock many of the items we needed.  The kids and I took a few minutes to recover from the hike, and we all walked back out of town and found one more market that was open and purchased a few more items on our list.  With careful planning and eating bread for a couple of meals, we should be able to make it to Monday morning without starving, but hey, whatever keeps us under budget is all good.