Walking with the Gods and a midnight picnic on the Amalfi Jetty

A note one should take with them:
When you ask people, how to get somewhere and they point up…like I mean they point directly up to a far off point in the mountains, then they snicker and look at you and snicker again, it doesn’t matter what language you speak… this is universal for

“stupid tourist, no one does what you are thinking about doing, but I will guide you, so I can tell my friends over limoncello and gelati, that I sent two crazy kids up the mountain on shits and giggles”

So it was with this thinking that Beth and I decided to walk up the mountains to Scala through Pontone and Minuta.

Scala is divided into six different hamlets with precise identities: from north to south, Santa Caterina, Campoleone, Campidoglio, Scala, Minuta and Pontone. Attractions include:

• Santa Caterina: Porta Urbana, church of Santa Caterina, chapels of St. Paul and Santa Maria della Porta
• Campoleone: church of San Pietro, in Angevine–Gothic style.
• Campidoglio: church of San Giovanni Battista, with a Moresque bell tower.
• The Duomo of Scalea, modified in Baroque times. It has maintained the medieval crypt, the Angevine sepulchre of Marinella Rufolo, and an episcopal mitre and a Crucifix from the 13th century. Also notable is the Bishops’ Palace.
• Minuta: Romanesque church of Annunziata
• Pontone: church of San Giovanni Battista and the remains of the basilica of Sant’Eustachio

Now the thing here is that Scala unknowing to us, has roads leading to it, but the path up the mountain is known as the Path of the Gods. Now its not that I dont like my mythology, anyone that knows me, pretty much knows that I always have a couple books on Greek and Roman mythology lying around, but this was just ridiculous.

Since we started on the path, like any normal other walk…

With nice sets of lemon trees and what not… which by the way, these people seriously are into their lemons. Like they make everything with the venerable Lemon. I am impressed when you only have lemons on an island, how you can make everything out of the damn things!

So anyway, we got to the some steps….

which led to more steps…

which also led to some great views

Eventually though after an hour and 45 mins of climbing… I had to give up… my legs and calves had to turned to mush and we still had the walk down to finish. Thankfully, going down for me was pretty decent. Beth wanted to continue for a bit more, but the walk and climb just seemed to be never ending. Seriously!

So after we returned to the hotel and got laughed at by the Francesco…(is every male in italy named Francesco or Franco or Luigi or Super Mario??), Amanda at this time had gone to the market and gotten some nice bread, proscuitto, olives and cheese, while Beth and I had gotten the Vino and Limoncello!

Drink Mixing note: Limoncello and a decent flavored vodka, served cold as a shot is a great pick me up! Equal parts of Limoncello and Flavored Vodka (Cranberry, Raspberry, Black Cherry or even Lemon would be a great mix). Shake with two parts ice and strain into a shotglass with some cherry liqueur, you can’t go wrong!!

So anyway our friend George was diligently working away on his laptop and we invited him along for our little midnight picnic with drinks! So the pictures below have been sanitized for human consumption, since things got a little rowdy by the end! With Beth doing drunken yoga poses, which amazed me and George and I getting into a heated discussion on photography, politics (americans vs the world) and gadgets! Amanda was just having a great old time listening and poking us along!! All in all, an all star night on the Jetty! You really can’t beat that for an amazing time!!

More of Amanda’s food and her food pictures.