The Pathway of the Gods. So we are up very early. Before 07h00 we are at the bus stop. Now even on a work day, that is early for me. I am not a morning person, although I have learnt in the past two years to get up early. I have not learnt to climb 400 stairs before breakfast. Yes, that is how many stairs there are between us and the road where we would catch the bus. And they are steep, a premonition of things to come…

In spite of the early hour, life is busy out on the streets. The local baker is delivering trys of freshy baked pastries. Let’s pause here – the pastries are something to behold. I remember the first timeI stumbled across Italian pastry. Vernazza, 2005. A tiny little shop on the steep hill up to our apartment. Sicilian cheese pastry – the most delicate layers of pastry, not puff. Paperthin layers of crisp pastry, that serves as a container for the most divine cream cheese filling. Not just any old cream cheese, a light, smooth textured cheese filling that escapes the corners of your mouth and the pastry casing. As if it is dying to burst out of captivity, the cheese just oozes out. Desperate gulps will suffice to prevent any of this heavenly filling to end up on the floor. Messy. Life is really messy sometimes. Where was I?

Oh, early morning at the bus stop. Italian men love sitting on the side walk watching the world go by. (In fact so do Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish men.) Here they are all lined up on a low wall, greeting everyone going to work (I would assume most of them are retired). There are jovial “buon giornos” and “ciao ciaos” to the unfortunate ones who still have to work. Scooters fly past – the smell of soap, shampoo and eau de cologne wafting behind the drivers. (Of course the smell is often very different in the late afternoon. It is hot and sweaty in summer…). The street sweeper is out arranging the debris of the day before for the little motor that comes along with its two crab-like brushes devouring all the cigarette butts, bus tickets and remnant of those whose mothers did not teach them not to litter. (This of course calls for an entirely new blog. Some other time).

Our bus to Amalfi arrives. It is a BIG bus – makes no sense to me that they do not have very narrow busses here. The squeeze to get other busses and cars and taxis and scooters past this one without wiping them out speaks of immense driving skill. Every time we pass another pass it literally feels as if I have to suck in my stomach, which after three weeks of pasta is no mean feat! You can hear the whole bus suck in their breath as another bus comes hurtling towards us, a huge sigh of relief as we survive another near death experience. In Amalfi we get a smaller bus, thank God. Because now we start climbing the mountain. The roads are narrower still, the drivers faster still. Early morning deliveries, scooters scootering to work – a mother and father with a small child clutched between them on a 125cc scooter going downhill at the speed of light. The path of the Gods must have special protection for the Italian souls.

Algero, the little village where we start our walk, is indeed right up there in the sky near the Gods 635 metres above sea level. Legend has it that the Gods came down on this path to reach the sea where the sirens lived that tried to seduce Ulysses with their singing. We walk from Agerola to Nocelle. Words again fail me to describe the scenery. In Agerola we stock up for the road – ciabatta with thickly sliced, fresh mozarella and thinly sliced sweet prosciutto that melts in the mouth. (We were warned by Tripadvisor that we will not be alone on the path. I will spare the reader our irritation with some people on the path…)

The track is quite easy, even though at times it seems that the slip of a foot would bring one to a very very steep fall to death. The views are worth dying for. Literally – I cannot help thinking that should I fall to my death, it would be fitting of a life well lived. On the rare moments that the Trump supporters are out of earshot, the silence is tangible. It takes us about two and a half hours to get to Nocelle where we gulp through two ice cold beers in a quaint little pub perched against the mountain cliffs. (The owner has a donkey that makes the most unbelievable sound possible. At first I thougth a small child was being strangled – hoping it was the one walking with her cellphone playing music on this sacred track. We then realised on the exhale that it was a true donkey sound.)

The busride back is no less scary. By now it is fun to watch the faces of the first time tourists on the bus. Siesta is calling, the soul renewed.