Getting high on the Amalfi

22nd April 
Memo to self: watch more of the track and less of the view.  Ouch.
 
Woke up this morning feeling like we needed a day off, so we took it slowly over breakfast.  The weather looked a bit changeable, and I’m glad we didn’t rush off to walk to the top of a mountain this morning! The photos tell the story.

10:20	11:20	12:20

With the weather fine and enough lazing about, by 12:30 we’d packed some lunch, and this time, instead of turning left at the B&B gate, we turned right and started climbing. 
Our plan was to complete the Sentiero degli Dei – We’d done about 2/3 of it yesterday, but hadn’t covered the section to Positano.  The route would take us to the heights above Positano before plunging into the town (hopefully not in free fall). 
We climbed steadily for about an hour. Just above our B&B the houses and agriculture gave out and we were ascending through forest.  The higher we went, the better the views.  We were climbing in brilliant sunshine and soon shed any warm clothes, but were also often crunching through drifts of hail from the earlier storm.
Lunch was at a forestry refugio hut before traversing to the little village of Santa Maria del Castello which sits on the divide, providing views north toward Sorrento and Naples. 
The knees may one day forgive me for the descent, but the views over Positano and the coast were worth it.  The wild flowers seemed to really like this microclimate, and it was like walking through a garden.  Jen kept saying “we’ve got that, but ours is red”, or “I’ve never been able to get this to grow well at home”.  In protected spots there were cyclamen out in profusion.
The trickiest navigation of the day was through the stairway lanes of Positano to the foreshore for the final reward of the walk. 

Then the little bus back to Montepertuso, an opportunity to wish “buona sera” and exchange a smile with the little man who showed us which stop the get off the bus at yesterday, and a quick trip to the market for dinner supplies.
Where I found these. Something that our children in Melbourne will no doubt love. The Amalfi just got better….