Diary: Three Days Walking the Amalfi Coast Trail

Three days is a reasonable amount of time for the Amalfi Coast on foot, provided you accept that the coast has its own opinion about your itinerary. We had a plan: Amalfi to Ravello on the first day, the Path of the Gods on the second, the old coast path from Praiano to Positano on the third. We walked most of it. We also stood in front of two locked gates, waited for a bus that never came, and took one ferry that rescued an afternoon. Here is how it went, stage by stage, detours included.

The Amalfi Coast trail network is not one tidy path but a web of old mule tracks, staircases, church steps, lemon-terrace walls, and signed routes that occasionally vanish behind a house. Locals use these paths the way other people use pavements. Hikers use them the way other people use gym memberships in January: with optimism, then negotiation. The trick is to treat the plan as a sketch and the timetable as a rumour. Once we accepted that, the walking became easier. Not physically easier. Philosophically easier.

Day One: Amalfi, Atrani, and the Steps to Ravello

We started late, which is the traditional way to begin anything in Amalfi. Bags left at the guesthouse, a coffee taken standing at the bar, and then up through the alleys behind the Duomo, following the signs for Ravello. The staircase to Atrani slips under the houses at one point — a low tunnel with a bend of daylight at the far end — and then you are in a piazza small enough to cross in ten steps, with the church of Santa Maria Maddalena sitting above it like a lid.

Atrani is the sort of place that makes you reconsider your life for about ninety seconds. Fishermen’s houses, a sliver of beach, a bar with three tables, and a general air of people who have decided that the sea view is enough. We filled our water bottles at a fountain near the church, checked the sign for Ravello, and started climbing. The route out of Atrani is not a gentle introduction. It is a staircase that seems to have been designed by someone who disliked knees.

From Atrani the climb to Ravello takes about an hour if you don't stop constantly. You will stop constantly. The steps are wide and shallow at first, then narrower, and the lemon terraces open up on your left while the sea keeps appearing between roofs on your right. Somebody's washing hangs over a stretch of the path near the top. A cat supervises from a wall and declines to move. At one bend a man was watering basil in old tin cans, and at another we passed a small shrine with plastic flowers and a faded photograph. The path is not a wilderness walk. It is a walk through the back of a working place, and that is the point.

Ravello in the early afternoon is hot and quiet. We did the sensible thing and did nothing for two hours: lunch, then a slow circuit of the belvedere. We skipped the villa gardens because we were hot and cheap, and because the view from the public terrace was already doing the job. A lemon granita helped. So did sitting down. Coming down, we took the bus rather than the steps, because descending 1,000-odd stone stairs is harder on the knees than climbing them, and this was only day one. The bus took fifteen minutes to do what had taken us two hours. We pretended not to be annoyed.

Day Two: The Path of the Gods, and the Sign That Stopped Us

The bus to Bomerano leaves from Amalfi and takes about an hour, climbing up and around with the sea falling away beneath the road and the houses shrinking into white specks. The bus was full, the driver was calm, and the hairpin turns were handled with the confidence of someone who had done this ten thousand times. We got off in Bomerano, a small village with a square, a church, and a bar that sold excellent coffee. We filled our bottles, bought two oranges, and followed the signs for the Path of the Gods.

The path begins as a paved lane between houses, then turns to gravel and opens onto the ridge. The views are absurd. The sea is a flat blue floor, the coast is a row of cliffs, and the path contours along the hillside with a drop on one side and a wall of rock on the other. It is broad and obvious at first, and for twenty minutes we felt like proper hikers. We passed a group with trekking poles, a man in sandals who was moving faster than all of us, and a dog that had clearly done the route before.

Then we came to the sign. After about forty minutes, at a junction where the path should have curved toward Nocelle, we found a metal gate padlocked across the trail and a laminated notice flapping in the wind.

“Sentiero chiuso per frana.” Path closed due to landslide.

The notice had a date on it, and the date was not old. Beyond the gate the path looked fine for about ten metres, which is the dangerous part. A man with a small backpack was standing there, considering his options, and we stood with him and considered ours. The drop to the left was serious. The fence was not decorative. We could see a possible way around, a scrambly line through the scrub, and we decided that was a bad idea in walking shoes on a hot day with no rope. So we turned around and walked back to Bomerano. The Path of the Gods had given us forty minutes of gods and then sent us home.

Back at the bus stop, we waited for the bus that never came. The timetable on the wall had the optimism of a fiction writer. The 13:20 did not appear. Neither did the 14:00. After fifty minutes we shared a taxi to Amalfi with two German walkers who had also been defeated by the gate, and the driver took the coast road at a speed that made the bus driver look cautious. In Amalfi we did the only sensible thing: we took the ferry to Positano.

The ferry rescued the afternoon. From the water, the coast rearranged itself. Villas that had looked like inaccessible fortresses from the path now looked like villas. The cliffs showed their full height. We sat on the open deck with salt on our faces and watched Praiano slide past. The afternoon we thought was lost became the best hour of the day. It was also the cheapest lesson of the trip: when the land route fails, look at the sea.

Day Three: Praiano to Positano, and the Second Locked Gate

The old coast path from Praiano to Positano is less famous than the Path of the Gods and more intimate. It starts near the church of San Gennaro and drops through a corridor of bougainvillea and lemon trees before joining the cliff. We followed the signs for Positano, past a tiny vineyard, past a house with a lemon press in the courtyard, and then along a path that clings to the rock above the sea. At one point it runs behind a hotel pool; you can hear swimmers laughing but you cannot see them. It is that kind of path.

For an hour it was perfect. Then, near Marina di Praia, we found the second locked gate. A landslide had taken out a set of steps, and the gate had been installed with the same laminated confidence as the sign on the Path of the Gods. We stood there, looked at the map, and took the detour along the road. The road was not beautiful. It was narrow, busy, and full of scooters, and we walked single file with our shoulders turned in. It added forty minutes and a few grey hairs. But it also gave us a view back toward Praiano that we would have missed on the path, which is the sort of thing you tell yourself while a van passes too close.

We rejoined the trail above Positano and descended the long staircase into town, past ceramic shops, bougainvillea, and cats that had found the only patches of shade. Positano announced itself by smell: sunscreen, lemon, coffee, and a little bit of diesel. It was crowded and hot and entirely itself. We ate an early dinner near the beach, watched the ferries come in, and agreed that the detours had made the day. We had not walked the path we planned. We had walked a different one, and it had been better than the plan.

What We Learned About Timing, Buses, and Ferries

Three days on the Amalfi Coast trail teaches you a few practical things, mostly by making you wait somewhere hot. These are the lessons we would pass on.

• Start early. The coast is a morning place. The light is better, the heat is lighter, and the paths are emptier. By noon in summer, the exposed staircases feel like a grill.
• Check trail status locally. Landslides and closures happen, and the official websites are not always current. Ask at the tourist office, your guesthouse, or a local bar. A five-minute conversation can save a two-hour detour.
• Treat bus timetables as aspirational. Buses do run, but not always when the sign says. Buy tickets at a tabacchi before you need them, validate them on board, and keep small change.
• Use the ferries. They are seasonal, weather-dependent, and not cheap, but a ferry can rescue a failed afternoon and give you a view of the coast that the trails cannot.
• Respect the descent. Going down 1,000 stone steps is harder than going up. Poles help. Slow helps. A bus down from Ravello is not cheating; it is self-preservation.
• Leave room for the detour. The best moments of our three days happened because a gate was locked or a bus did not come. Plan the route, then let the coast edit it.

What to Carry on the Amalfi Coast Trail

You do not need expedition kit for these paths, but you do need to take the heat and the stairs seriously. This is what worked for us.

• Water. At least 1.5 litres per person, more in summer. Refill where you can, especially in Bomerano and Ravello.
• Sun protection. A hat, sunscreen, and sunglasses. The paths are exposed for long stretches, and the sea breeze hides how strong the sun is.
• Sturdy shoes. Trail shoes or trainers with grip. Not flip-flops, not smooth-soled fashion shoes. The stone steps are polished and uneven.
• Cash. For buses, bars, small taxis, and the occasional emergency lemon granita.
• A light layer. The ridges can be windy even when the towns are still.
• Offline maps and a battery pack. Signage is good but not perfect, and a wrong turn on a hot day is tiring.
• Snacks. Oranges, nuts, a sandwich. The villages are close, but the path between them can feel longer than it looks.

Three days is enough to learn that the Amalfi Coast trail is less a route than a conversation. You propose a plan, the coast replies with a locked gate, a bus that never comes, or a ferry that turns an afternoon gold. We walked most of it. We missed a bit. We saw more because of the misses. And we came home with the usual hiker’s conclusion: we would do it again, but next time we would start earlier, carry more water, and trust the sea when the path says no.

Photo: Mylene2401 / Pixabay