Emergency Trip to Belvedere dell’Abbazia di Camaldoli

Prologue

Hello, and welcome to the first post of the “Emergency Trip” series! This series is about trips and journeys organized ”on the fly”, sometimes out of a “why don’t we go seeing this place?!”, said a couple of hours before we actually go there. A recurring aspect of the series is the short (if not absent) time spent for the preparation of the event itself, often resulting in decision about the road to take and the things to do made “at the moment” (spoiler: this usually results in stunning views and beautiful memories).

How did we get there

Going from our city to the Belvedere was a pretty straightforward move, mainly thanks to the sat nav and Anna (okay, nobody calls it a “sat nav” anymore, but i won’t include the name of the navigation app, as we actually used more than one navigator to get there, and Anna played the main part, as I often mess up with the navigator). The journey itself was marvelous, as the landscape gradually changes as we go up the hills, going from the industrial buildings and historic quarters of Naples to the more picturesque and less densely inhabited suburbs of Camaldoli to places dominated by trees, mountain roads and silence.

What did we visit

Being this an Emergency Trip post, i will not go through the history and the artistic value of the place and i will focus solely on what we actually saw. Once we entered the small parking area before the Abbey, at first we (actually, I) thought that the Belvedere consisted in the parking itself, as already the view from there was astonishing. It was only thanks to the help of the local “valet” that we found our way inside the Abbey, up to a stair (from which what i believe is the cloister of the abbey could be seen) which leads to the church and, from there, a small sign indicates the way to the Belvedere. The path from the church to the Belvedere went along the walls of the graveyard of the abbey, having the woods of the steep mountain on the other side, separated form the path only by a small wall made of bricks. Using the power of the internet, i will leave a better idea to the reader of what one could see and feel while walking along the path in the following video (which shows the trail on the way back, lit up by lights as it was getting darker).

Once we got to the Belvedere, the sight was simply breath-taking. It was colder than the rest of the city, and the air had a sweet smell of musk and grass. Below the terrace of the Belvedere, the mountain steeply decreases in height, until it reaches the sea, from which the islands of Ischia, Capri and Procida dominate the gulf. The city itself seemed like a beautifully crafted toy, as it felt like both historical and industrial buildings could be removed with one hand and put somewhere else. The highway itself (that we took to get there) seemed like one of those small tracks where children engage in races among small cars made of tin, smiling and laughing as they see their cars go around.
Being the crazy head that we are, we took the liberty of bringing two Long Island with us, to sip while watching the landscape (which, by the way, went beyond our initial expectation).

Slowly, the sun came down behind the mountains, and we went back to our little red car to go home, peacefully surprised of what we had just experienced. After all, i was right when I said, on the pathway to the Belvedere, that “this view will remain impressed in our souls!”.