An odyssey in two posts

We have had several odysseys recently. Today we went to the monastery of San Fruttuoso. Situated in a picturesque bay on the Tyrrhenian Sea, San Fruttuoso was founded in the 10th century as a Benedictine house, and has served in one capacity or another as a monastic foundation or a fishing outpost since. The terrain is extremely forbidding - the monastery is built in a little bay in a mountainous peninsula that shoots directly (I mean directly) up out of the sea.

The structure was remodeled extensively in the thirteenth century at the wishes of the Doria family, some of whose tombs lie beneath the current structure. In the sixteenth century, it was a personal project of Andrea Doria, one of Genoa's most famous political figures, to reform the monastery and leave it as a monument to his family's glory. I highly, highly recommend visiting it if you have the opportunity. It can take as little as 5 hours or as many as 10. Details below.

San Fruttuoso is reachable in one of three ways: Walk from Portofino. Take a boat. Walk from Camogli. We were feeling energetic, so we decided to walk it. We had been pre-warned by a friend who recently made the trip from Portofino on foot and let us know that it was a fairly hilly and narrow path, complete with gates to keep wild boars (!) in/out. For variety, we thought we would take the slightly longer walk from Camogli rather than Portofino.

We caught the train from Genova Piazza Principe to Camogli at 7:52, arriving at around 8:30. Out of the train station, we followed the directions we had, turning left and heading into the carabinieri parking lot. From there, we easily found the (reasonably well-marked) trail, which began as a paved path, heading uphill into the early morning sunshine. Our legs began to feel the burn quickly, but as time went on we settled into the rhythm of the climb, following the path which was marked periodically by two red dots. We passed a church just opening for the morning, and the path that had been climbing the landward side of a hill/mountain jogged to the right and headed off along a path along the shore, several hundred feet up from the Mediterranean, which was gorgeous in the early morning sunlight. Along the way, we stopped and took a few photographs.

Something like forty-five minutes into a trip advertised as 2.5 - 3 hours we left paved trails for some more serious trail action. Luckily, the two red dots continued along the side of the trail, and at any trail splits there were helpful markers indicating which trail led where and noting which symbols (red triangles, red dashes) marked the trails for various points. We were feeling a bit winded, so we opted to skip a small side-trip to see a different old ruined Benedictine abbey, instead heading off to our left and further up and up. It was at this junction, though, that I began to have a twinge of doubt about our choice of route.

There in small, red, lower-case letters on the signpost under the name of the path we were taking was written "molto impegnativo." I know enough Italian to recognize instantly the conceptual space that 'impegnativo' occupies: involving, engaging, etc. I forgot at the time it can also mean 'demanding.' Nevertheless, I had heard from our friend that there was a running race on the path that he had taken to the monastery. How impegnativo could "molto impegnativo" really be? Molto, apparently.