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“Questa la via a Montepertuso?”, I queried in my best Berlitz traveller’s Italian. The nervousness in my voice owed less to a tenuous grasp of the language than it did the fact the man I was addressing was holding a loaded shotgun. I knew it was loaded because he carried it broken open across one shoulder, a fresh pair of cartridges showing red against the sleekly oiled barrels. Fortunately I’d made myself understood, because he gestured beyond the dusty path on which I stood, towards a faint trail that apparently did lead to the hilltop hamlet of Montepertuso. Nodding a humble “grazie”, I trotted on past the man’s olive trees and trusses of bright red tomatoes, in the midst of which stood a donkey and cart. The whole scene struck me as so prosaically ‘rural Italy’ that it hardly seemed possible I’d set out barely an hour before from the beachside town of Positano, on Italy’s famous Amalfi coast.

Positano epitomizes the Amalfi experience: its dark sand beach is overrun with visitors, its narrow streets clogged with tour buses. Yet the town’s setting is so absurdly picturesque, perched upon a pair of cliffs overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, that not even a combination of overpriced fashion boutiques and loud Americans can spoil the experience. I would have cheerfully joined them to wallow in a little seaside vacation-chic were it not for a conversation I had with Maria, the stern but rather fascinating lesbian proprietor of my pensione. She insisted the cliffs above Positano hid some of Italy’s most beautiful walking trails, which few visitors ever saw because they spent their days sitting on the beach or in a cafe. It was all the incentive I needed to swap my beach towel for a backpack, and start up the set of rough stone stairs that cut across Positano’s steep, winding switchbacks.

By the time of my encounter with Signor Shotgun, the last bit of sealed road was behind me and I was feeling positively gleeful that while hundreds of tourists milled about on the beach below, I was surrounded by nothing but clean air, sunshine and bucolic Italian splendour. The market gardens on the cliff-top plateau smelt all sweet and herby, and just when I’d decided I could happily stroll among them all morning, the Montepertuso trail plunged into a fairytale forest of pines and fir trees, emerging every few minutes to reveal yet another stupendous view of the Amalfi cliffs framed by a blazing blue sea and sky.

When the trail had straggled far enough around the southern cliffs to open up a view to the north, I pulled out the map Maria had given me on which she’d circled a pair of intriguing landmarks. The first was a cluster of three islands just to the north of Positano; marked simply as ‘Li Galli’, this is where the Sirens of Homer’s famous Odyssey dwelled, luring sailors to a shipwreck death with their mesmerizing song. Gazing down from my sunny perch at the forest’s edge, I could well appreciate that for most visitors to Positano, getting a look at these islands was going to involve chugging along the coast in a crowded tourist boat.

With that piece of literary history tucked away, I turned my attention from the sea to the ridge above the trail, on the lookout now for Landmark Number Two. Maria had impressed upon me the fact that the “Monte Pertuso”, for which the village I was headed to is named, is one of only three perforated mountains in the world. Having no idea what a perforated mountain might look like, I kept my eyes trained on the cliff-tops as I walked, hoping the thing would be recognizable if and when I did come across it. When I finally spotted it, about two hundred feet above the trail, it was exactly as advertised – a mountain peak that appeared to have had a large hole drilled right through the middle of it. The other two such mountains are both in India, so it felt like quite a coup to lay eyes on this bizarre geological feature, the only one of its kind in Europe.

The trail wound its way at last down to the village of Montepertuso, from where I had planned to hop a local bus back to town. But the gods had been smiling on me all morning so I stuck my thumb out instead in hopes of hitching a lift. Two minutes later I was sitting in a battered Citroen 2CV, beside a local tradesman who manoeuvred it like a rally car around the mountain bends. He smiled in agreement (I think) as I shared, in pidgin Italian, the events of a wonderful day’s walking. Before I knew it I was being deposited at the beachfront in Positano, where I was astonished to discover I had been gone less than four hours.

It’s easy to see why creative luminaries such as Pablo Picasso and John Steinbeck once made Positano their home, and easier still to imagine they found inspiration while walking these cliff-top trails. This is a walk that any reasonably fit and healthy person could do, and although the trail was clear and well trodden, I had not seen another soul. I feel sure Maria would recommend braving the stair-climb and possibly a shotgun-toting farmer or two, in order to experience one of Italy’s most breathtakingly scenic walks, which happens to be within shouting distance of one of its most beautiful seaside towns.

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