Walking in Sorrento, Amalfi and Capri – Landslips

Last month on my latest visit to La Costiera Divina amongst other things to check out were news of two landslips affecting walks in Landscapes of Sorrento, Amalfi and Capri. Occasionally in winter quite horrendous storms can hit, often causing very localised flash flooding. Reports of damage to paths filter out to me from various sources.

Landslip One had reportedly happened on path Segment 36, on the steps down into the gorge of Furore, the so-called Path of the Mad Bats. On arrival in Amalfi I organised with friends to check this out, but we were astonished to go down perfectly normally with nary a sign of loose rocks or bits nibbled out of the side of the path. False alarm.

Much more serious were reports of a large landslip near the start of Segment 50 near Pantano.  A hefty length of road had fallen away, supposedly barring all access. It seems the usual local practice of finding a way to hop round would not work, so a proper detour was needed.

Taking the local footpath map (issued free at local tourist offices  — a real snip) I alighted from the Amalfi bus and fiddled my way on minor paths to the site of the rockfall, here to be gobsmacked by sight of its extent (see photo) and to be surprised to meet two bewildered walkers wondering how they could get across.

I had already worked out from the map a detour that should work, but which needed checking on the ground. Before doing this myself I talked the detour through with our baffled friends who even took a picture of the map on their iPad.

After looking at something else, I followed them up to the hamlet of Li Simoni and checked out the routes from there round the landslip. It transpired that these followed fine narrow paved tracks. Details noted, these changes were posted in the online update as soon as I returned home.  Job done.