We walked on again, going further and further uphill, and passed another sign helpfully marked 'molto impegnativo.' It was at this point that things began to get a little hairy. We had been walking for some time on a path that was anywhere between six and eighteen inches wide, with no guard rail, support, or tree screen between us and an extremely long and uncomfortable trip to certain death in the green and blue Mediterranean. Or on the rocks.

Then we reached a point where it finally became clear what the signs had meant: a stretch of flat rock, wet, slanted between thirty and fifty degrees downward. There was a steel chain pegged into the rock at intervals along this face, so that one could grip the chain and lean outward, toward the ocean, and by pulling back on the chain drive one's feet against the wet rock to prevent falling to certain death over the cliff toward which one had to lean to get traction. Sweet.

Katina is a very brave person, and it started to worry me that I started to hear notes of freak-out in her voice as we contemplated this turn of events. Frankly, I think she was more worried about me than about herself, but then again I was more worried about her than I was about myself. Without pausing too much to reflect, we soldiered onward and after a few moments of awkwardness in which we both told the other to "keep your hands on the chain!" three or four times, we reached the other side and began to clamber over more rocks.

At this point, the path was marked more frequently by red dots because it wasn't really a path, but rather a kind of vague series of holes and shelves in the rock of the peninsula that formed some semblance of a trail. Running race, my butt. At any rate, with the worst of the trail behind us (so we thought), we continued. Twenty minutes later we reached another rock face / metal chain combination. Let's just say neither of us was thrilled. We were even less thrilled at the third, and the fourth iterations of this experience.

Finally, the ordeal ended, and we passed out of the stony path section onto the series of uphill then downhill switchbacks that led us to the monastery. Even then, we were both so exhausted it was difficult to enjoy the journey to the fullest. We finally rolled into the monastery at around 11:15, precisely in the 2.5 to 3 hour window as predicted.

I don't want to play up the dangerousness of this whole endeavor. There was no real point at which I thought either of our lives were seriously in jeopardy. Let's say rather, that I thought the following things in the following order over the hours we spent on the hike:

This is a beautiful hike, but I wouldn't want to bring my grandparents.
What a nice hike, I should bring my parents.
This is a pretty tough hike, but I bet my parents would still like it.
Maybe if we went nice and slow...
I am glad that we are still young and strong.
I wish we were younger and stronger. And had better shoes.
I am glad to have done this while I am still able - this is beautiful.
Thank god this is over.

Either way, the trip was definitely worth it - the monastery was excellent and I would have liked to spend significantly more time. If we hadn't come in the dead of winter, there would have even been restaurants to eat at. See San Fruttuoso. Just don't walk from Camogli.