Searching for Tufas Along the Amalfi Coast

For the next month, we are staying in Sant’Agnello, a place famous in the 18^th and 19^th centuries as a place for Bourbon princes and Russian millionaires to escape the “crowds” of Sorrento. The region still attracts the rich and famous, and it’s easy to see why: a dramatic coastline rising high above clear, blue-green waters; richly coloured, ornate buildings; charming shops; fresh, delicious food; Naples and Pompeii within a short drive. All of that, plus seeing some amazing photos of nearby climbing, and it seemed to us like a perfect place to explore.  

We decided to just walk around Sorrento on our first day, as the forecast threatened (and later delivered) rain. Corso Italia, the main thoroughfare, is as lively as it gets: people walking, people talking, people gesturing, cars and scooters whizzing buy, a traffic cop chasing away those who tried to park in the main square (with more gesturing). We wandered down narrow streets lined with well-kept old buildings, admiring the carefully curated displays in shop windows. Ulysse halted abruptly in front of one such window, drawn by the irresistible cascade of chocolate tumbling from a small fountain. Before we had a chance to move on, a shopgirl called out through the open door, asking us if we’d like to try a chocolate. We accepted, but still hovered outside the door, some part of us trying to resist this tourist hustle. She brought us another round of chocolates while we hovered. Ulysse noticed they had coffee beans, which we did need, and so obviously had to go in. 

We ended up staying for quite a while in this shop. They weren’t busy, and the two charming young women who worked there offered us samples many delicious things: sundried tomato and pistachio pesto, olive paste with truffles, truffle salt with parmesan, forty-year-old balsamic vinegar. Ulysse joked that if she kept feeding us, we would get too fat to go climbing. 

“Ah!” said the young woman, “but you’d be happy!”

Ulysse then asked her if she’d ever tried climbing. 

“Are you kidding?” she asked, in her beautifully accented English, “Look. I am a laaazy person. If I could just eat and sleep, it would be my dream!”

Of course, we left the store having purchased more than just coffee.

Later, while having lunch at a sushi place, we struck up a conversation with the only other customer, a recently retired American who had spent the last few months bouncing around Egypt and Italy. We’ve noticed that when we mention that we’ve come to Italy for rock climbing, people usually imagine that we mean something like hiking. To clarify, Ulysse likes to show a short video of me taking a big swing after cleaning the last draw from an overhanging climb. As Ulysse pressed play, a flash of horror erased the jovial smile from the man’s face. When he realized that I wasn’t falling to my death, his faced composed itself into something more like shocked surprise.

“You guys are crazy!!!” he declared; the verdict delivered with no room for debate. 

How interesting to see someone react in such a way to something we regard as routine. 

The following morning, we headed to the Amalfi Coast for our first day of climbing. Our dear friend, Gian Piero, who is a physicist from Rome, had warned us that the Amalfi Coast road is so narrow “that you need a sort of quantum squeezing of wavefunctions when you see a bus coming from the opposite direction…you then just close your eyes, trust Quantum Mechanics, and go!” We had heard also heard horror stories of gridlocked traffic and people waiting for hours to catch buses in the summertime. 

On that late-January day, the road between Sorrento and Positano was many things—beautiful, winding, an engineering marvel—but not at all busy. There was a little more activity as we neared Positano. One man was unloading three donkeys from a small pickup truck, then piling bags of cement onto each. In this crazy, precipitous terrain, the old ways still prevail. 

The drive had been so peaceful that we’d begun to think Gian Piero had exaggerated the narrowness of the roads. Then we turned off the main road and started up toward the village of Montepertuso.  The road narrowed to one lane, with cars parked helter-skelter anywhere they could fit (and in some places where they couldn’t). Workers were unloading equipment; a guy with a tiny forklift blocked the road for awhile as he manoeuvred a pallet of goods. We rounded a corner and braked hard as we came face-to-face with a large van. There was no way we could pass each other, even in our little Fiat Panda. The van backed up, the car behind us backed up, and finally we backed over to the side of the road to let the van pass, the driver gesturing all the while. How on earth can this system function in the busy summer months? I felt immediately sorry for the residents. Tourism is the foundation of their economy, but it must be hell when so many people invade. We later learned that the town is in the process of implementing license plate-based restrictions for the peak months. I have my doubts that this will have much impact.

With a sigh of relief, we parked near the impressive soccer field that occupies the heart of the town. It was perhaps 8:30 am. Grey clouds hung low in the sky and a cold wind blew down from the mountains, the highest of which had a dusting of snow. A drop of rain landed on my cheek. Climbing at that moment did not seem appealing. At all. 

“Coffee?” Ulysse asked.

“Coffee!” I agreed.

But where? The few restaurants we saw nearby appeared to be closed for the season. We walked a few minutes toward a café that was supposed to be open according to Google Maps. Unsurprisingly, it was closed. We’ve come to realize that very few businesses update their opening hours in these little tourist towns. Coincidentally, the owner of the restaurant was just heading out to his car. He seemed surprised that we might think they would be open, explaining that his little family-run establishment would be closed for at least another month or two, making repairs, gardening, and resting up for the next onslaught of tourists. 

Eventually, a group of masonry workers helped us out, kindly walking us halfway to the café and then pointing it out. Inside, as we sipped our espressos, the two friendly women who worked there told us that most places in Positano were shut down for the winter; they could only think of one other café and perhaps two restaurants that might be open. Their café opened at night only on the weekends to serve pizza during this time of year. I asked if their pizza customers were tourists or locals. 

“Only locals,” the woman said, “That’s what we do here on Saturday—go for pizza!”

By the time we left the café, the weather was looking ever so slightly more promising. We left our heavy climbing packs in the car and headed off to inspect one of the crags. Down we went, navigating many ancient stone steps and crossing narrow terraces with citrus and olive trees. The crag looked promising, but as it was east-facing, not a great choice for such a cool day. 

Back up the ancient stairs we went, planning to grab our packs from the car, and head to the crags above the town. The guidebook photos of this sector looked very promising, with tufas dripping down the rock face like candle wax. The guidebook also contained the approach directions, “…walk up the seemingly endless stairs…” They weren’t exaggerating. Ulysse and I quickly realized that, while our climbing fitness had improved in San Vito, the short approaches there had allowed our cardio to slip below that of a pack-a-day smoker. If nothing else, this Amalfi climbing would whip us into shape!

We crossed more terraces, climbed more stairs, and picked our way through brambles. And lo! We came to the land of tufas, the sheer number astonishing to behold! And every damn one of them was dripping. So much so that it sounded like it was raining. We retreated through the brambles and inspected another tufa-rich cliff. It was also dripping. Then we headed for a south-facing crag, which was sunny and dry, with a spectacular view of Positano and the sea below. The climbing was pretty unappealing, however. The rock was at times crumbly, at times sharp, and perhaps because we hadn’t been doing much face climbing (or because our legs were wobbly from all of the stairs), the few pitches we did felt very difficult for the grade. Neither of us said anything, but we were both disappointed. We hadn’t spoken to anyone who’d climbed in the Amalfi area—maybe wet tufas and bad face climbing would be our lot for the next month. As I hung for the second time on what should have been a fairly easy warm-up grade, I heard a donkey loudly braying out his complaints not far below. “I hear ya, buddy,” I thought. I began to think of those pictures you see of the beaches of Positano on Instagram, and seriously started to question our life-choices.

Two days later, legs still a little sore, we woke up to a clear blue sky and a renewed sense of optimism. We’ve rented an apartment in a villa surrounded by a dishevelled little paradise, with a riot of citrus trees: mandarin, orange, lemon, kumquat, and the largest pink grapefruits I have ever seen. We picked a few oranges and hit the road for Positano. 

It was much warmer, so we returned to the first crag we’d gone to two days before. It was wonderful, with both interesting technical face-climbing, and beautiful burly overhangs. The sun was shining, we climbed shirtless, and made friends with a donkey. Hooray! We watched the sun set on the deep blue of the Mediterranean, and then…sigh…we had to hike up a bunch of stairs again with legs still tired from two days before. However, as we staggered to the top, we realized it was Saturday. And when in Positano, Saturday means pizza–hooray!

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