Day four - Scala and the Nature Reserve of "Valle delle Ferriere"

Today is the day we move hotels, leaving our bags in reception we were to catch a bus from Amalfi to Scala.  

We went up on to the roof terrace and captured the cathedral exterior.

We had plenty of time today only 5 hours walking bus left every half hour so we slipped into the cathedral and wandered around taking it all in.

We then walked down to the Piazza Flávio Gioia where we watched the world go by as we waited for our bus.

We were soon up in the hill village of Scala. This is an old village with a large church on the main square.

Passing a water fountain 

There are some lovely old steps leading up to homes set in the hillside.

Passing a 13th century Manor House which has kept much of the original features and is now  private dwellings.

 We then walked out of Scala towards the tiny village of Minuta, along a twisting road giving views over Ravello.

Once in the little square of Minuta we had views of the village of Pontone and the ruins of S. Eustachio.

On retracing our steps we saw donkeys loaded up to transport goods down into the village.

We now climbed up a flight of stairs for 350 steps so we were looking down on Ravello and Minori and Maiori.

We contoured along through pine woods with amazing views Amalfi, Atrani and Torre dello Ziro

We would walked along the Ceraso Aqueduct continuing along the Valle delle Ferriere to the innermost point in the valley. The instructions warned that we may get our feet wet, but we managed a successful crossing.

We then followed the stream on our left side along for about 1 km, a very pretty valley.

We were now on an Italian Alpine Club route signed by red and white marks to indicate the way, these were going to be very familiar for the rest of the holiday. Walking over limestone we set off uphill again following the way marks we descended to another stream with waterfalls 

We were soon walking into the outskirts of the small village of Pogerola the views back across the wooded valley we had just negotiated were wonderful.

It was fantastic walking in the woods with the spring flowers

A final flight of steps and we were in Pogerola 

We found some lunch in a little restaurant the view from the terrace looking back into the valley.

From here the guided walk suggested walking back to Amalfi and taking a local bus to Agerola - San Lazzaro.

We were having such a good day, it seemed a waste to walk back into town when our next destination was just over the hill.

We asked in the restaurant and yes you can walk takes about 90 minutes, sounded good to us. As always it was a flight of steps out of the valley!

Soon we were climbing steeply but the views back across the valley grew more majestic as we ascended.

We really felt we were perched right up above Amalfi 

We continued the ascent up past a deserted church, Madonna dei Fuondi and over the Coll with M. Scorch on our left. We were now off piste following an ancient little used pathway between Amalfi and Agerola. Walking up into some woods and following a rough dirt road we came to the edge of the valley looking over into Agerola and down into a village we weren't sure of. A local out rabbiting indicated we were to go straight down the poorly made out track zigzagging the hillside to the yellow building. This we did in no time and descended into the village of San Lazzaro easily finding our new hotel on the Main Street. We had had an adventure and not got killed!!