Path of the Gods on the Amalfi Coast: a hike along the geology of the "Sentiero degli Dei"

The Path of the Gods on the Amalfi Coast is hidden between steep cliffs and mountain walls in a mythical corner of Italy. Greek gods come to life on this enchanting shepherd's path with breathtaking views. Here, on the Sentiero degli Dei, they descended from the heavens to save Ulysses from the sirens' wailing. And even before humans worshipped gods, even before humans existed, this was not a mountain range but an undersea ecosystem full of coral reefs in the time of the dinosaurs, when the Tethys Sea was slowly shrinking and Europe was not a continent but an archipelago of islands. Those who walk the Path of the Gods on the Amalfi Coast are immersed in a world ruled by the whims of heroes and deities from classical antiquity and a godless geological era. Both are magical.

Story, photos and copyright: Kathelijne Bonne. Support GondwanaTalks with a one-off or recurring donation.

Italy reveals its secrets little by little; even its most breathtaking coastlines can never be fully known. Italy shows, once more, to be inexhaustible. We are only now discovering the "Sentiero degli Dei" or Path of the Gods on the Amalfi Coast. I heard about it from my Belgian childhood friend Nathalie, with whom I share a love for horses.

I spent Christmas in Naples this December. A trip into nature is just what I needed to escape the commercial hysteria that precedes Christmas and the jingle bells tunes blaring ad nauseam from Chinese bazaars that hold the Neapolitan metropolis in a stranglehold and rob it of its magic.

The Amalfi walking route is an ancient footpath used by shepherds. It winds its way up steep limestone cliffs, through deep ravines and past oak forests and strange, almost tropical plants. Olive trees grow on ancient terraces. Donkeys and goats graze on small plots. Time stands still for the farmhouses that cling to rock faces and for crumbling but revered tiny chapels. There is no coast because rock walls stand almost vertically in the sea, a sign that they are still in the process of rising out of the sea by immense but imperceptible geological forces.

From the Path of the Gods, you can see how the Mediterranean Sea stretches to the south and the shadowy, bluish profile of the steep Amalfi Coast to the west. At the very horizon lies the island of Capri.

The road to the Amalfi Coast and the Path of the Gods

We set off for the Path of the Gods from Campi Flegrei, where we are staying, the volcanic area full of craters and buildings northwest of Naples. The Tangenziale motorway takes us through tunnels under craters and over bridges spanning the metropolis, occasionally catching glimpses of the Tyrrhenian Sea glistening below.

As we emerge from a larger tunnel, Vesuvius suddenly appears, with its Gran Cono and Monte Somma, a remnant of the older and once larger volcano that embraces the current crater of Vesuvius. In Roman times, before the eruption of 79 AD, the volcano was higher than it is now, but without a crater, so the Romans did not know it was a volcano. In 1631, when Vesuvius erupted cataclysmically again, people knew, but the devastation was no less. The motorway runs alongside the volcano and the profile of the mountain changes. It becomes more pointed, higher and more threatening.

Via Ercolano and Pompeii, the road leads to Castellamare. At an exit littered with plastic waste, arrows offer the blissful choice between the Amalfi Coast on the left and the Sorrento Coast on the right. We turn left onto a smaller road that winds its way into the Monte Lattari mountains, the name given to the mountain range that forms the backbone of the Sorrento Peninsula. The name Lattari echoes latte, milk, referring to the goats that are at home in this remote corner of the boot of il bel paese.

We drive through the village of Gragnano, where pasta is made, mozzarella is twisted, wine is brewed and oil is pressed, to the hamlet of Bomerano (Agerola), where we leave the Fiat Panda behind and continue on foot, because this is where the Sentiero degli Dei begins, which leads all the way to Positano.

Walking on the Sentiero degli Dei

At first, the Path of the Gods is still an asphalt road where (modest) cars such as tricycles and Cinquecentos can still pass, but then it becomes a narrower path on white limestone, without a balustrade, winding around the mountain slopes. Here and there is a cottage, an inn, a tavern and even a glamping site, none of which are open, and not a soul in sight, except for animal souls.

Eventually, we do encounter human walkers, one with dreadlocks, a wild-bearded northerner, a mother with a baby in a sling and a father with rucksacks and feeding bottles; and workers labouring at farmhouses.

The scent of nature and the sea suddenly mingles with that of goat's cheese, and an unmistakable equine aroma indicates the proximity of donkeys. The donkey is the only practical and reliable means of transport along this path. A donkey just below us (because there is only below and above, no "beside") begins to bray, echoing off the mountain. A bray echoes back from another valley in response.

After a big bend and more steps and wobbly knees from vertigo, we suddenly get a view to the west where a panorama unfolds to the end of the peninsula, Punta Campanella, and behind it Capri with the faraglioni, the enormous rocks that stick out of the sea like the inverted teeth of a sea monster. 'Stack' or sea stack is the geological term for this landform.

Monti Lattari: the backbone of the Sorrento Peninsula

The Path of the Gods is ideal for appreciating the geology of the Amalfi Coast and the entire Sorrento Peninsula in peace and quiet. The Sorrento Peninsula is a mountain range, the Monti Lattari, a branch of the Apennines, which juts out into the sea and borders the Gulf of Naples. Sorrento is located on the north side of the peninsula, facing Naples and Vesuvius, while Amalfi is on the south side, looking out over the sea to the southern mountains of Cilento.

The Monti Lattari mountains consist of limestone that has been lifted out of the sea. The highest peaks are San Michele (1444 m) and Monte Faito (1131 m) with a characteristic square top, like a battlement. Capri also belongs to this massif and was once connected to the mainland, especially during the Pleistocene when the sea level was much lower.

Jurassic and Cretaceous: the Amalfi Coast was a coral reef in the Tethys Sea

During the Mesozoic era, this entire area was located in the Tethys Sea. During the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, there was a vast carbonate platform (a shallow undersea limestone plain) here, or a clear sea with coral reefs in which marine organisms with calcareous skeletons lived, anchored to the reef or living freely in the water column.

Further north in Italy, similar limestone has been transformed into the famous Carrara marble. In the south of the country, limestone from the same era has been preserved in Puglia, the heel of Italy, which is a last remnant of the vanished continent of Adria.

During the Cretaceous period, sea levels were much higher than today due to a greenhouse climate (there were no or hardly any ice caps). As a result, continental shelves were submerged in shallow seas, which were clear and heated by the sun, allowing biomass to thrive.

Miocene: the Sorrentine Peninsula rises from the sea

Much later, during the Miocene (when we still shared an ancestor with other great apes), the limestone plains and reefs were lifted out of the sea as a result of the collision between the African plate and smaller Eurasian plates. These tectonic forces caused the originally horizontal limestone and dolomite layers to be folded, broken and pushed upwards. At the same time, faulting occurred, contributing to the creation of the heavily dissected landscape.

The uplift is still ongoing, as evidenced by the steep coasts without beaches. In the Sorrentine Peninsula, the porous and fracture-prone nature of limestone has also led to karst phenomena, such as underground rivers, crevices and caves, where prehistoric rock paintings have been discovered.

In the shadow of volcanoes

In the current geological era, the area was influenced by volcanic activity from Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei. The eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD almost completely covered the limestone massif in ash, which was then largely washed away by rain. The area remained extremely dangerous for decades afterwards due to landslides and mudflows. Later eruptions also left their mark, but not all of it bad, as volcanic ash acts as a natural fertiliser.

The eruptions temporarily clouded the sea, but the ash sank and the waters are crystal clear again on the Amalfi Coast. Where the sea is shallow, it changes colour from deep indigo to turquoise, which we can just make out far below the Path of the Gods, as we bend a few branches of cork oak aside at the fountain (fontanella) at the glamping site.

After a panino napoletano at the viewpoint by the fontanella, we return to Bomerano where the walk began because dusk is falling. It is 21 December, the shortest day of the year, and the sun has already disappeared behind the mountains. I look back over my shoulder one last time at the Li Galli islands, where the sirens of Ulysses beckon, and at the faraglioni of Capri, barely visible in a blue haze.

As we drive back towards Naples, Vesuvius is an inky black silhouette in a brightly lit megalopolis bursting with Christmas stress. As I write this on Christmas Day in Cumae, that stress has already ebbed away and we rediscover the magic with family and children playing, who understand each other without a common language, and we raise a toast to what matters: Pace nel mondo.

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Read also how the Mediterranean Sea evaporated 5 million years ago, how the heel of Italy was joined to the boot, Michelangelo's David's true past, about the forgotten eruption of Vesuvius in 1631 and the blood of San Gennaro, and about how we can survive super-eruptions.

Kathelijne: I am intrigued by how earth, life, and societies interact on geological and human timescales.

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