Tag: Montepertuso

09-29-2018 Day 5 Montepertusso, the Hole in the Mountain

Montepertusso, Italy, Clear and 22C 72F

After our very long day yesterday, Deanna and I thought that it would be great to have a nice quiet day at home We imagined a perfect “jammie day”.  We did realize that we would have to dress to walk to the nearby market in the local square to get more bottled drinking water.  I put on my most comfy shorts and top, a pair of sandals, bringing my walking stick and the phone. The short walk is still a bit rough, so the stick was a good choice.  Who knows about the phone, but I thought it might be nice to get a photo of the square and anything else that popped up.

The market is small,and quite charming, with a very good deli in the back, a small hidden area for household items, some fresh produce, and lots of yummy pasta and olive choices.  We chose a fat swirly pasta called Trecce to go with the homemade tomato sauce from Sara’s garden offered to us this morning.  At the register the kind woman was very helpful with figuring out our change and what we needed to pay.  Somehow the 16 EU charged on the register became 36 EU after she helped us with the currency.  First lesson learned.  Don’t be stupid and think that just because the sweet little lady in the market has served you several times and been really sweet that she won’t attempt to confuse you and cheat you.  The market is called Marrone New Shop Di Cuccaro F.  As I said a delightful little shop, but know your euros and count your change.

Leaving the market we counted our losses, laughed at ourselves a bit in frustration, and wandered off through the square toward the back of Il Ritrovo  This restaurant is highly recommended however we will not have time to try it out.  A beautiful colorful map posted by a nearby stairway showed us the route we had been wondering about: how to get to the famous Hole in the Mountain, Montepertuso il buco.

We looked at each other and said, “Why not?”  I had on sandals but I at least had my stick for hiking the stairs and my phone for taking photos.

The stairs looked quite familiar, but unlike the stairs down to Positano, the stair depth was more like real stairs.  One step per stair instead of 3 or 4.  Up up up we went with a group of young people sometimes in front of us and sometimes behind us, but never intrusive.  A few other folks my age were huffing and puffing and stopping now and then to catch their breath, so I didn’t feel too badly when I had to stop as well. We loved being slowed a bit by a young man sweeping the steps, taking care of all the debris from the previous night’s winds.

I also enjoyed stepping aside at several terraced gardens, rich with ripening squashes, grapes heavy on the vines, and tomatoes at the end of their cycle.  These terraces are the rich legacy of centuries of farming  and eons of rich volcanic soils.

On our return trip we encountered a farmer with his machinery going down the steps.  Can you imagine having to do this to get to your gardens every day?  Notice the tracks on the garden machine for climbing the stairs.

For me, however, the biggest problem was the dang vertigo that I have been fighting for some time now (like years).  It gets to me at the most inopportune times, like when climbing stuff.  Such a pain.  I have discovered that I can crawl up really steep weird things, and have also learned that with one stick, all I need to do is simply touch something with my other hand to make it ok.  Deanna’s shoulder was a very welcome addition to the hike, both up and down.

Not too far from the summit is a “park area”, and I was happy for a flat place to get my balance.  I guess you can see from my expression I was a bit unnerved.

The last portion of the hike is quite steep and a bit rough, with crazy steps and rocks, and I was very happy when we reached the top. The small group of young people were ahead of us, standing around in the magnificent arched opening in the mountain. 

One of them kindly took our photo and then Deanna decided to walk out on a very narrow rock ledge to a pinnacle overlooking the village below and the sea.  I wasn’t able to get a photo of her adventure since she had the phone with her, but the resulting photo is one of my favorites of our trip so far.

We waited a bit for the young folks to come down, but when it seemed they weren’t about to go anywhere we joined them in the arch.  They were very sweet, and I got a kick out of the fact that I wasn’t the only one wearing sandals.  Actually the sandals were a great idea, since they are the least slippy of any of my hiking shoes, have plenty of toe room, and I love hiking in them. 

After exchanges mostly in broken Italian, I asked, “Di Dove Sei?”, and it turned out they were Italians from a town just over the mountain near Sorrento.  The young men were in suits and the women in dresses, and they were carrying man purses, which seemed a little strange for a hike.  One young man finally spoke to me in English saying, “We are here to share the Bible knocking on doors of homes.  We are Jehovah Witness”.  Wow.  In Italy, where 99 percent of the population is Catholic. They were sweet kids, and with the language barrier, they at least declined from asking us if we wanted to learn about the Bible and Jesus. 

The hike down was a piece of cake, with the elevation difference of only 300 feet or so and Deanna’s shoulder in front of  me for balance, we made it in no time.  Returning through the square in the gorgeously brilliant sunshine, we ambled back to our home and spent the rest of the afternoon “doing nothing”. This meant we spent several hours processing photos from the previous days, and making sure we had all our spending tracked and recorded.

Supper was early by Italian standards, with the yummy pasta, a fresh zucchini stir fried as an addition to Sara’s tomato sauce, and a yummy salad with fresh greens, tomatoes, a truly fabulous balsamic from Valenti’s and some of Sara’s olive oil.  The zucchini wasn’t anything like ours at home, much more dense and flavorful, and less watery.  Fabulous.  The tomatoes are a treat in themselves and can only be found with flavor even close this at home in farmer’s markets.

Dessert was the last of our pistachio cannoli we had saved from our walk in Positano and a sip of the incredible limoncello we purchased the night before at Valenti’s. (See the post from Day 4 with more about this)

I fell into bed so looking forward to a night of good sleep.  As lovely as our little BnB has been, the beds are not the least bit lovely.  The bedding is fresh cotton, all ironed and embroidered, the coverlet is nice, the blanket is good, however the mattress feels a bit like cardboard with a plank of plywood beneath it.  I have only managed to figure out a bit of comfort by adjusting some of the 4 large pillows around my body here and there to try to get the pressure off the hips.  Not a surprise, as I do remember some hard beds from previous trips on this side of the pond.  Deanna and I are both really hoping that our bed in Florence is a bit better.  Firm is good, but hard isn’t so much.

With all the photos we took, with two cameras and two phones, we had a bit of trouble trying to keep track and attempted to process and upload often so as not to lose them.  We didn’t completely succeed, and some of the photos I took of the interior of our apartment are forever lost.  If you would like to check out the space, here is the link to the Airbnb website for La Selva Santa, our Home Away from Home.  The people in the photo sitting at the table are Enzo and Sara.

A link to the photos for this day that I did not manage to lose is here


09-26-2018 Day 2 The Stairs of Positano

I have found that comments will work if you click on the header for the current post rather than the header for the blog in general. Just an FYI. Looking forward to your comments.

Montepertuso, Italy, Clear and Sunny  72F  22C

On our first morning in Montepertuso we woke to a brilliant sunny sky.  The night had been incredibly windy and all the beautiful terra cotta pots filled with herbs on the terrace had been blown over. 

With the gusty winds our first lovely breakfast provided by Sara was served inside on the dining table rather than on the terrace.  What a breakfast it was!  The star of the show are Sara’s homemade croissants served with her homemade jam.  Breakfast includes these wonderful croissants, eggs, various meats and cheeses, juice, yogurt, panini sandwiches, sweet and savory home baked breads, and some kind of crispy toasts in a package.  It is always much more than we can eat so we save the paninis for lunches when out walking, the yogurts for afternoon snacks, and the breads are piling up in our bread basket.

After breakfast we decided that in spite of the winds, it was a perfect day to walk the stairs down to the town of Positano.  The stairs are a highly recommended activity when visiting Positano. Most often reviews mention the wisdom of walking down instead of up and taking the bus back up the hill.  We thought that was great advice.

There are about 1,700 steps from our village of Montepertuso down to Positano.  This number seems to vary according to different websites but after reading more we have decided that this is a pretty good number.  The elevation difference, however, is not in question and the 1,100 foot elevation drop from our village to the beach is real, regardless of the number of steps. Our step trackers showed that we walked a bit more than 3 miles. No matter how you count it there is a LOT of down.

Positano is built on a cliff of limestone and the roads and stairs snake along the cliff sides with each turn providing another mind boggling view of the town and the sea to the south. The entrance to the stairs is a short walk from the square in Montepertuso along the very narrow road where we have learned to squeeze against the railing as cars pass.  Traffic along these roads is basically indescribable. You have to experience it.

The upper part of the stairway is a bit rural with lush terraced vegetable gardens and scattered homes.  The stairs themselves vary in depth and height and the surface is rough stone.  There are railings in some places and not others but you have to be careful if you use the railings because they are often crawling with tiny ants.  Amazing views open up at almost every turn. 

Approaching town we passed some people going up and others going down as we were.  Notably, most of the people going up were young folks with backpacks heading for the Path of the Gods.  This hike is another highly recommended activity in the area and begins in Nocelle which is a tiny village beyond Montepertuso. I would love to talk to some of these folks AFTER they climbed all those stairs and then continued a hike on the path.  The only one I know who could do it easily would be Mark Johnson.

After about an hour we came to “the pink house” mentioned by a BnB owner we encountered on a porch overlooking the trail who was kind enough to give us directions.

Turning left as he said we found ourselves emerging on a “real” street in Positano filled with tourists, shops, and marked by gorgeous Italian ceramic planters filled with flowers.  We got caught browsing for a bit in the ceramic shops but am proud to say that I didn’t succumb to purchasing anything although those brilliantly colored platters and vases have always been a draw for me.

We walked along the road a bit toward the east before turning and continuing down toward the spiaggia (beach).  The stairs wind down through tiny streets lined with shops and then open up into the piazza  in front of the cathedral.  We skipped visiting the interior for the moment and continued down some more stairs passing a few more shops before arriving at the the lovely Positano Spiaggia.

The BnB guy on the path on the hill had told us about the best gelato to be found in Positano and we found it just past the bar at Cove Dei Saraceni as he had instructed. There we had our very first taste of Italian gelato and it is everything we imagined.  How in the world can simple ice cream not taste anything like simple ice cream! There is a method to purchasing gelato in Italy.  You must first pay at the cashier, decide whether you want a cup or a cone, get your receipt, and only then return to the ice cream counter. Only then do you choose your flavor. There are often small tables and seats in the shop but should you choose to sit instead of walk with your treat there will be another charge.  The same holds true for ordering espresso or cappuccino in the cafe’s.

The beach at Positano is quite tiny without true sand and very few folks laying out in the sun.  There were all types of boats moored in the small harbor from tiny rowboats to big yachts, local fishing boats, speedboats, and several ferries to various locations around the coast including the Isle of Capri, sparkling in the distance.

By this time I was feeling pretty tired walking with the stick compensating for the stupid knee and needed a place to sit.  Not far up the street from the beach we found a nice little restaurant called La Zagara where we were seated at a nice window table for two.  We were initially offered one of those tables in a dark corner that they try to give to unsuspecting tourists.  We had a simple and inexpensive lunch of a slice of pizza and lemon granita tea .  It was delightful.  We were grateful for the use of the restaurant restroom as there are not many public restrooms available in Positano.  On the way out we stopped at the bakery counter of the restaurant to purchase a fabulous pistachio cannoli to take home for dessert.  Italian cannoli was another new experience.  WOW! It was nothing like the tasteless things I have tried only rarely in the states.

We walked back up the stairs to the Duomo The Church of Santa Maria Assunta and took time to enter into the quiet sacred space.  Visiting cathedrals can be a bit overwhelming. It takes time and the willingness to go slowly.  We wandered, read a bit, took photos, and did some oohing and ahhing between us before emerging back into the sunlight.  Deanna and I were both a bit appalled at how some tourists seem to have no qualms intruding into spaces where people are in prayer and contemplation with their cameras.  We both made an effort to be respectful but it takes a bit of effort to get decent photos inside a cathedral no matter how many people are inside. 

Leaving the cathedral, we returned to the Fermata Mobility (the local bus stop) across from the Tabacchi (tobacco shop) where we purchased our bus tickets to Montepertuso.  The fare is 1.3 EU each way and worth every cent.  It is 1.70 EU if purchased directly on the bus.

We have found the people in Italy to be delightful, charming and pleasant, except  when they are waiting for the bus.  This particular activity requires fortitude and a willingness to get in the midst of the push and shove of everyone trying to get on the same bus though the same tiny door.  However, once on the bus, the walking stick and white hair are quite an advantage. Everyone from older men to younger women offered their seat to me! I did take advantage and used the “old lady card” and was very happy that I didn’t have to stand all the way home through the winding streets of Positano high up to the village of Montepertuso.

A view of Montepertuso. Our apartment is right behind the church

With our tummies full from our afternoon lunch, dinner was simple and perfect with another glass of Enzo’s delightful wine from the previous night and our gorgeous pistachio cannoli.

The rest of the photos for this day’s post are located here.