Peggy's Excellent Italiano Adventure: Walking the Highs and Lows of Praiano -- Part 2

The flowers hanging everywhere I walk.

One of my streets.

I love walking these little streets and I explored below the lower church to walk some of those lanes and catch glimpses of the sea between the trees and gardens. Since I have arrived spring is fully in bloom. The majority of trees don’t lose their leaves, but the few that do are starting to bud and flower, as are the grape vines. Many flowers are blooming and some sort of gorgeous lavender flower has bloomed lushly and hangs over the bowers under which we walk or people have as shelters in their garden and patios. Every little lane has pots on walls, beside doors, or in gardens. I think it would be a terrible stigma here if you did not have a green thumb. I have traveled down several streets I thought were public and ended up in someone’s front door, and other times I would swear I was at their door when I would notice a faint turn and walk through people’s patios as the little street continued. I’m not sure if the houses or the streets came first. Twice I followed paths that lead down to beaches with stairs of some 300- 500 steps. I wasn’t going to ry the steps, but I did want to get to the head of the steps. Once I sat above a beach in a deserted cove looking down on aqua water able to see the rock formations beneath the sea. Extemely peaceful. Another time I followed a path through houses, then gardens where it seemed to end above the sea in woods. I noticed a faint trail in front of one of the rock terrace walls and decided I may as well follow it. I heard someone chain sawing above me and prayed they weren’t going to just throw wood and branches down on me. The trail continued until some rough stone steps and fragile wooden rails loomed in front of me. I decided to go a bit farther as it seemed relatively safe. The rails certainly wouldn’t hold me if I grabbed them during a fall, but I wasn’t too worried. The sea again sparkled and beckoned with that lovely aqua color through the trees, but the trail sort of ended over an edge I couldn’t see and the handrails were also absent. Realizing no one knew where I was or what I was doing, I decided retreat was the reasonable option. The view was dazzling even if I didn’t get to touch the water.

Another time I had decided to climb up the cliffs behind town to reach a very famous convent that I can see from my house. A trail called the Walk of the Gods winds all along these cliffs and mountains on this peninsula and a part of it, the part considered the best, goes right by this convent. The woman at the Info office said it was 500 stairs up, but they were little and not difficult if you stop and rest frequently. I had my map of Praiano and saw if I went straight up from my house to the top road I could connect with the trail up there. So after almost collapsing trying to get to the top of Praiano, and admiring the really great view from the top, I continued to the end of the street and around the side. Whoa! All I saw was a canyon with a major, big cliff and the convent hanging off the far side way, way, way up high. My first thought was : where is my pick ax and rope? All I had brought was my hiking shoes. Not only that, the path split in two and there was clearly only one path on the map. Way on the far side of the canyon I saw a sort of staircase with a handrail going along the side and I figured that had to be part of it. But in front of me was a dirt path going down and some cement steps going up. I followed the cement steps for a bit and noticed the ground just dropped off to the left with no handrails. I again realized no one knew where I was and what I was doing. I retreated back to the beginning of the paths and just stared. I could not figure out how anyone would say it was easy to get up that cliff. I kept looking back and forth at the map and the convent. It was so high! Then suddenly and man comes around the corner dressed in hiking clothes, backpack and walking stick. We say hello and he moves on. Then he turns and comes back and tells me in accented English if I am trying to get across I should take the lower, dirt, path. He apologized for passing me, he said he was surprised to see a tourist here, and he had a vineyard up there and I could follow him if I wanted. I was sort of dumbfounded and I sputtered I was going to go another day. Before I could get out any more questions he was gone. All I could think was vineyard up there??? He had to put on hiking clothes to get there, how did he get the grapes down? I could just make out some terracing on the cliff walls and figured that must be the vineyard. I wanted to ask him a million questions, but he was already on the other side of the canyon and starting up the stairs. I never would have been able to keep up with him.

My stairs have definitely taken a toll on my bad knee and my back to the point where I limit my going down and up to once or twice a day. If you think I’m being a baby, Adraina just returned from her obstetrician and now that she in in her 7^th month, he said she, a lifelong Praiano stair climber with no pregnancy complications, can only do the stairs once a day. A couple days when my knee throbbed and my back shrieked I have just stayed up in my perch all day which is not much of a hardship when the sun is shining and the temperature is 70. Perfection comes to mind. However, after mass yesterday I really wanted to take a walk after resting my knee for two days. I started out on just a short stroll along the main highway, but when I got to the other side of town I thought, what the heck, I may as well go and see if I can find the grocery store again. By now I knew that if I wanted to walk uphill most of the way I could walk all the way around the point, zig zag up the roads in Praiano, stop at the store , continue winding up the road and end up above my house and slowly walk down a few inclines, and then about 60-70 stairs down to my house. So that is what I did. Luckily the store was open on Sunday (Don’t ask me why, none of them were before – it’s Italy!) and I could buy some water too. It was warm and sunny and I was thirsty. Oddly, the men at the store kept staring at me and looking back and forth at one another and I would like to believe I was looking pretty good that day, but it was probably because they were trying to figure out where I came from, just like the ladies in church. The other nice part of walking here is no one expects you to walk fast. Every walk will necessitate stairs and inclines so this is town of tortoises not hares. Putting your shopping bag down, resting and take a drink of water is perfectly acceptable. The funniest part to me is people are always standing waiting at the bottom of hills and if you watch long enough, someone else comes along and picks them up. They don’t call on a cell phone, it’s just worked out beforehand or someone they know drives by. So, what could have been a 5 minute walk up my 127 steps, became a 3 kilometer uphill walk, costing 20 Euros and ending with a half kilometer downhill stroll including some 50 to 60 stairs, taking about an hour and 15 minutes. I knew there was an easier way around!