Today we walked starting at 9:30 AM and returning to our hotel by 7PM! We started out on the main road out of Amalfi stopping to tour the Paper Museum. Amalfi was, in the 16th century a major producer of fine paper. We then walked up the mountain through lemon groves that went on forever and were amazing to see and then through a valley full of ruins of old paper mills. Much of that part of the walk was through a national park. We got to a small village, Pontone, where we stopped for water and snacked on some fruit and rested a bit before heading on to Ravello. The walk to Ravello wasn't very long but it was hot and all uphill. We walked up a LOT of steps to get there! It was worth it however, as Ravello is a lovely town, with a very quaint town square and lots of winding little lanes with shops and restaurants. We had a leisurely lunch and then visited Villa Cimbrone, a beautiful enormous villa on the top of the mountain overlooking the sea. Gore Vidal apparently stayed there and deemed it one of the most beautiful places in the world! We walked all through the villa grounds which are full of beautiful gardens, and statues and cypress trees and lemon trees and fig trees and rose gardens and a terrace that looks out over the sea. After we left the villa we headed down the cliffs to Atrani and on back to Amalfi, stopping in Atrani for a refreshment break. The walk down from Ravello to Atrani and Amalfi is a VERY STEEP DESCENT all on steps. Really hard on the knees, to say the least! They just go on and on! By the time we got back to our hotel we were pretty tired. It was hot and sunny all day. Not oppressively hot, but we were pretty sticky by the time we got home. Showers felt pretty good after all that walking.
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