From Maiori to Minori along the Sentiero dei Limoni (Lemon Path)

The itinerary is a fairly easy walk connecting the towns of Maiori and Minori, just over 2 km apart.
It runs entirely on stairs, which can therefore prove difficult for those who only like to walk on flat paths.
It starts in Piazza G. D’Amato in Maiori, reached by walking up Corso Reginna Maior for about 500 metres.
From the square, one must take the steep staircase that leads to the Collegiata di Maiori (the town’s mother church) and then to the hamlet of Torre di Minori, where it reaches its highest point (150m).
From the hamlet of Torre, continue downhill until you reach the centre of Minori, where the walk ends.

From a historical point of view, this path brings us closer to the knowledge of one of the main economic resources of all times of this area: the Sfusato Amalfitano lemon.
It can certainly be said that the Amalfi Coast continued to be rich and productive even after the 14th century (the century of the definitive decline of its merchant navy) thanks precisely to this lemon, which is in fact only produced in this area and is therefore called ‘Amalfitano’.
It is hard to believe that a simple fruit could have such a significant impact on the economy and history of a territory; but in the case of the Sfusato lemon, this is indeed the case.
And one can well understand this by looking at the infrastructure created to produce it.
The incredible terracing of the Amalfi Coast is in fact the clearest testimony to the fruitfulness of this agricultural production, which in the Middle Ages represented a real panacea against one of the worst diseases of the time, scurvy, caused by vitamin C deficiency.
In fact, a sweet lemon that could be eaten from the peel (such as the Sfusato) proved to be a powerful medicine against this disease, to the point that it was even worth radically transforming the land to create gardens where it was almost impossible to have them due to the verticality of the land.
The Sentiero dei limoni (Lemon Path) is precisely a path through the Sfusato gardens and the terraces created to plant them.
An itinerary that tells us about 800 years of the Amalfi Coast’s history, if it is true, as it is, that these productions are still active and that many of the Amalfi Coast’s fortunes are still due to this very lemon, which has now become an essential ingredient of the highly appreciated local cuisine and of the Amalfi Coast’s famous limoncello.
But the Sfusato lemon also tells the previous history of the area.
In fact, it did not arrive on the Amalfi Coast by chance but was known to the people of Amalfi thanks to the intense trade they had undertaken many centuries earlier with the peoples of the East.
Indirectly, therefore, the lemon terraces also remind us of this historical period, lasting between 839 and 1143, which was certainly the most prosperous for this area.
Their existence also tells us about more remote phases of the Coast’s history.
The techniques still used today for building dry stone walls and irrigating gardens are exactly those used in construction and agriculture by the ancient Romans. This leads us to understand that this area was already inhabited in Roman times, as demonstrated by the various finds of ancient Roman villas in various places along the coast, including Minori, not far from the end of the itinerary.