Unexpected Hike to Nocelle: Wonderful Outcome entices you to make the best of your vacation when the unexpected happens. The map below shows Nocelle, a quaint town on the hillside near Positano, Italy where we stayed for two nights. If you zoom into the map, south of Lemon Point juice stand, you’ll see a dotted grey line that indicates the Nocelle to Positano staircase. The staircase introduced a potential problem we hadn’t imagined and encouraged us to adapt to a new reality to make the best of our time in Nocelle. We’ll get to that in a minute but first, let’s explore the bed and breakfast, the restaurant, walk and our staircase adventure to the ocean and back.
Table of Contents
Bed & Breakfast
We stayed at Casa Cuccaro Bed and Breakfast in Nocelle. They require a two-night minimum stay at this location but I promise you it will be absolutely worth it! We had two single beds put together to make a king bed, with an en suite bathroom which made it really nice. The room wasn’t super big but it did the trick. We didn’t spend very much time in the room anyway. It costs 180 Euros for two nights (approximately $260 CAD). The first picture shows the gorgeous view we had each morning while eating breakfast. You’ll definitely want to wear sunglasses to protect your eyes and sunscreen to avoid sunburn. The breakfast consisted of a variety of delicious fruit, yogurt, cheese, bread and jam, pastries and charcuterie. They offered orange juice, water, tea and coffee to drink. It was a fantastic way to start the day!
The Restaurant
Ristorante Bar Santa Croce had absolutely delicious food. We ate there once for lunch and twice for supper over the two days we visited. We don’t typically go to a restaurant over and over again but due to our staircase adventure (description below) and the restaurant having the best food so far on our trip while serving fresh food and a hazelnut dessert that Kris absolutely loved, it became our favourite spot! They have a variety of food including seafood, meat, and delicious Italian pasta.
My first meal for lunch was linguine with lemon shrimp and Kris had ravioli stuffed with eggplant covered in tomato sauce with white house wine and water. We added a hazelnut dessert. Our total came to 42 Euros. For supper, I had barley and lentil soup with bread in it. Kris had a steak salad with tomatoes, shaved cheese and arugula. They treated us to bruschetta with tomatoes (for having gone there a second time). Our total was 32 Euros. On our third visit, the restaurant owner was thrilled to see us again and immediately sat us for supper without a reservation and provided us with a glass of white house wine. We quickly got our food thereafter. I had tasty rabbit with potatoes while Kris had Argentinian beef. We were treated again with tomato bruschetta and we couldn’t resist more hazelnut mousse for dessert.
The menu offers a great variety of choices!
Tomatoes
Tip: If you are like Kris and don’t generally like tomatoes, in Italy, you might be in luck. Kris loved Italian tomatoes and ordered many meals including tomatoes. If you’re not typically a fan of tomatoes, perhaps give them a try in Italy.
Other Food Options
They also have vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options available.
Fantastic Food
The food was so fresh; it was a delight to eat. I highly recommend checking out this restaurant if you ever visit Positano. It’s worth the bus trip to Nocelle (if you can catch the bus, or you might get to experience an unexpected hike to Nocelle).
Walk of the Gods
We wanted to explore the area around Nocelle before going for a swim in the ocean. They have walking paths along the edge of these hills. This particular trail is called Walk of the Gods and was recommended for us to check out by our Bed and Breakfast hosts. We decided to try it out and walk along Via Pizzillo for a short distance past Nocelle. We went up a hill to take pictures of the gorgeous area and the view, but the temperature was around 30°C. The heat quickly got to us and we felt like we needed shade, a drink of water and as a result, going further wasn’t in the cards this time. Kris and I did get stunning pictures of ourselves and the area so it was a worthwhile venture.
On a colder day, I would have loved to explore more of this area with a local expert guide who knows the area and its history. This tour is two and half hours long to walk seven kilometres which would have been the perfect amount of time to investigate the area. Afterwards, if interested, you can add a lunch in a local trattoria. If you get a chance to go on this guided hiking tour, I highly recommend going. It sounds wonderful!
Exploring the Area
After our Walk of the Gods, we decided to go explore the other side of the town. We ended up finding a small local market that sold fruits and veggies. They also had pop, ice cream and some canned goods. We purchased tomatoes, a peach, green grapes, and chocolate chip cookies. I figured we should eat a snack before going swimming a bit later in the afternoon. We ate it back in the town of Nocelle in a plaza below our bed and breakfast and beside a church. It was neat to see the houses built into the hills. On our adventure, we took a few steps downwards then around the next corner, and found something new and interesting to explore. There are always different things to see.
Tip: Make sure to stay hydrated while exploring throughout the day. We came across a juice bar at the plaza and purchased bottled water and an orange slushy to drink with our fruits and cookies.
It was a great location to eat our snacks and admire the view. There was something unexpected at every turn. It was really neat. We didn’t have an agenda or things we needed to see. We just took the day as it came and played it by ear which was fun.
Staircase Adventure
Heading Down to the Beach
We thought it would be easy to walk down the 1750 steps to a local Nocelle beach (closer than going all the way to Positano). We were told it would take twenty to thirty minutes to get down, which it did. Thankfully there was some tree cover since it was very hot around 30°C when we were walking down the stairway. We got hot quickly.
Tip: When walking down the steps, we had to be cautious as they aren’t all the same size. Kris and I would get in a groove and then the spacing would change and we needed to readjust taking smaller or larger steps throughout the entire pathway down. We stopped often too, with our legs and knees hurting as we were not wearing appropriate footwear. We had our sandals on to go to the beach.
The Beach
The beach features many big rocks along the edge as well as into the ocean. It’s possible to go barefoot as Kris did. He managed just fine.
Tip #1: To be on the safe side and not worry about cutting up your feet, you can wear your sandals in the ocean as I did. I didn’t have to balance awkwardly on sharp rocks and was able to enter and exit the water with ease.
The water became deep quickly and we could swim without touching the bottom fairly close to the beach, which was pleasant. The water was so beautiful. We were able to float with no problem with the large amount of salt in the water.
Tip #2: We noticed our mouths being very salty when we exited the water. If you swim at this spot, you might want to buy a bottle of water to rehydrate and eliminate the salty taste.
Tip #3: Be aware of when the sun sets. I thought with it being so hot outside, I’d dry in no time and could save myself the hassle of bringing a towel down to the ocean with me. Except the sunset was at 6 p.m. when the sun disappeared behind a hill. I didn’t get to dry off and instead put my clothes over my wet swimsuit and stayed wet for quite some time. That’s not the most comfortable feeling!
Initial Plan
We thought we had a wonderful plan in place. We’d walk down to the ocean, go swimming and then take the bus back up. Super simple, right? Wrong. We thought we’d be smart, and wait a bit higher up the road from downtown to take the bus back only to find out that it was so packed that there was no way to get onto the minibus back to Nocelle. We had to walk down to the centre of Positano in the middle of the road since there aren’t any sidewalks and cars were extremely close to us making it quite scary. Once we arrived, we waited for another bus to show up at the depot an hour later.
Tip: If you want to get on the bus, you need to take a stance and be bold and stand your ground otherwise you’ll never get on. We paid attention to where the bus door would open and positioned ourselves to be right in front of the door to get on and thankfully that trick worked.
Day 2
After walking around Nocelle in the morning, we wanted to go swimming again. The plan was to walk down the 1750 steps again and be bold to get a spot back on the bus, like the previous day. We thought no problem… First off, as we approached the beach, we heard a loud sound cracking against the hillside and quickly realized that it was thunder and dark storm clouds were rolling in. The waves were getting quite large but after all the effort to get to the ocean, we were set on going swimming. But, that didn’t last long.
After fifteen minutes, we saw a shield of rain making its way towards us and we decided that we needed to get out quickly. Soaking wet, we ran out of the ocean into a nook in a rock and hid underneath it with other swimmers. Thankfully we had a safe place to hide since the storm with cold rain and hail took thirty minutes to blow over. At the time, we thought to ourselves that we were happy to get a quick swim even with the current chaos that we were dealing with. We could have turned around on the stairway but decided we had to follow through with our plan.
Bus Time
We walked twenty minutes down to Positano and waited forty minutes to find out that the locals and tourists had walked up to a higher stop and the bus was almost full once it reached us. Locals blocked us from getting on by extending their arms and allowing all their family members to fill the remainder of the bus. We’d have to wait for the next one in another hour. I’m not gonna lie, at this point Kris and I were furious. It didn’t seem like a good system to have so many people needing to take the bus and not having the capacity on the bus to meet that need. In the last picture above, you can see the bus frequency when it travels to Positano from Nocelle (every hour).
Stairs
I didn’t want to wait another hour for the next bus. We walked twenty minutes back up to the staircase and walked a one-hour unexpected hike to Nocelle. We were still annoyed but very grateful and thankful that we had our good health to have the option to walk back up the daunting stairs to get to our destination. I know not everyone would have been able to do that.
On the positive side, with Kris and I walking everywhere around Italy and typically in good shape doing many outdoor activities together, we were able to get to the top by walking 1750 steps of varying sizes in our sandals in one hour! I think our time for the unexpected hike to Nocelle is pretty darn impressive! Even though it wasn’t our top choice to reach Nocelle, we proved to ourselves that we were stronger physically and mentally than we knew. If we hadn’t walked up, we never would have known what we were capable of doing. At the end of the day, I’m thankful for that experience.
We had no desire to go back down to Positano, of course after our experience. It’s one thing to climb the stairs in the day but we weren’t ready to attempt that at night if we couldn’t get onto a bus.
Ristorante Santa Croce
We were grateful to have our delicious restaurant up in Nocelle where we could eat that night. As silly as it may seem to go another night to the same restaurant, it was honestly the best meals we had all trip and it was a relief to have a go-to restaurant where we’d be treated really well and knew the food would be amazing. We felt very comfortable at this restaurant.
Tip: Do what feels right for you. You’re the ones travelling after all. You get to make the decisions.
Hiking
If you typically like to walk in the city and find the unexpected hike to Nocelle staircase daunting, City to Wilderness Hiking: Where to Start? will provide tips to get you in shape and outdoors.
For more hiking adventures in Italy, check out Unforgettable Hiking Holiday in Bolzano.
Final Thoughts
In the end, our unexpected hike to Nocelle turned out to be amazing! It came unexpectedly and although we were initially annoyed, we were thankful to be in good health to walk up that staircase in one hour. Some might not be as fortunate as us to have that option to hike. We got to admire the gorgeous scenery, get exercise and enjoy each other’s company. We realized what a lovely place Nocelle is and we were happy to spend our time up in the hills discovering another place that wasn’t initially on our bucket list. Sometimes surprises provide opportunities to problem-solve, adapt and find the beauty in the unexpected. Make the best of unexpected situations!
Additional Links
- 11 Best Outdoor Adventures in France This Summer
- 7 Gorgeous Hikes Near Banff
- Mount Batur Sunrise Hiking Guide
- Where are the Gorgeous Hikes near Portland, Oregon?
- The Best Activities in Maui for Couples
Trip Ressources
- Book your flights with Expedia
- Book your hotel with Booking.com or Hotels.com
- Book your vacation rental with Vrbo
- Book your experiences through TripAdvisor or Manawa
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