Trek Amalfi: Path of the Gods

Post written by Laura

Bomerano – Nocelle – Positano

The Path of the Gods is one of the most spectacular walks of the Amalfi Coast and certainly one of the most scenic hikes I’ve ever done. You can start in either Bomerano (as we did) or Nocelle. This is the main section and while only 4 miles between the two villages it can be quite tough in 34 degrees!

Some people start further away in Positano and walk back to Bomerano which means launching into an initial climb of 900 steps! 

After breakfast everyone had left their main luggage in the hotel reception where it was later to be taken off to our next hotel in Amalfi. Carrying just our day packs at 07:30 we met Giovanni, our Intrepid guide. He led our group of 12 for the short 5 minute walk through the village of Bomerano to the centre where we collected the packed lunches we had pre-ordered from the bakery.

We walked to the start of the Path of the Gods (Sentiero degli Dei in Italian) around 10 – 15 minutes from Bomerano centre. The path has been established for centuries and was named after the Greek Gods of Olympus.

Despite the July heat the trek was fairly easy on an established pathway. The elevation at the start was 650 meters and followed an average elevation of around 500 meters as it wound its way up and down along the craggy cliffs of the coastline.

For most of the way we were trekking with amazing views of the Amalfi Coast to our left.

Some of the trek was through woodland which offered welcomed shade and other parts of the trek felt like we were in a microclimate cloud forest! I was reminded of being Monteverde in Costa Rica.

Giovanni was a good leader; he kept the group together, stopped several times for us to take a breather and sip some water and the steady pace allowed us to take plenty of photos and enjoy the stunning views.

We arrived in Nocelle and sat on some steps in the shady part of a little square. Here we enjoyed fabulous views of Positano as we ate our packed lunch. A ‘lemon hut’ called Lemon Point was available selling ice cold refreshing lemononade made from local lemons.

If you are tired or just don’t feel like continuing in the heat, you can take a bus from Nocelle down to Positano. Most of our group decided to walk the rest of the way and Giovanni led us around the back of Nocelle and through the valley towards Positano.

We walked for another couple of miles from Nocelle and stopped for a rest in a small square at the ‘top’ of Positano before facing the 900 steps we had to descend in order to reach to beach!

We were rewarded with beautiful and colourful views as we made our way down through Positano’s narrow streets.

Eventually we reached the beach, found a beach bar and enjoyed a delicious ice cold limoncello spritz… and a gelato…

After some free time to relax we re-grouped and Giovanni led us to the boat which was to take us to Amalfi, our next destination!

Above is the view of the ‘Path of the Gods’ terrain i.e. we were walking up there somewhere earlier in the day!

As mentioned by wikipedia, Amalfi lies at the mouth of a deep ravine surrounded by dramatic cliffs! Amalfi has been a popular holiday resort for many years… even in the 1920’s and 30’s it was frequented by the British upper class.

We checked into the centrally located hotel which was to be our base for the next 4 nights and later on in the evening we headed off with our new Intrepid friends to try one of Giovanni’s restaurant recommendations!