Stage 1 — Via Randa

For centuries, Via Randa was the defining connection between the village and the coast. From the safety of the promontory it led towards fields, springs and landing places, keeping together what may now seem separate: the village above and the sea below.

Walking it means reading this continuity in the stone surface, the curves of the land and the resting places. The road remains the thread that reconnects Stalettì’s historic geography.

Casino Pepe appears along the descent, a fortified rural residence that reflects the relationship between agricultural property, family status and visual control of the surrounding land.

Its presence in the landscape recalls that Via Randa was not merely a transit road: it connected homes, fields, springs and workplaces organised around the economic life of the hillside.

Near Casino Pepe, Fons Aretusa closes the historic section of Via Randa with a place associated with water and rest. The fountain is fed by the spring and belongs to the route’s material memory.

Its name evokes the classical heritage that runs through local storytelling. Along the Cammino, however, the spring remains above all a tangible sign: water as orientation, pause and continuity between the ancient landscape and everyday life.

Along the road, local memory recognises the posaturi, stones used as supports and resting points by people who travelled the route carrying loads and produce.

The story of grandmothers stopping during the climb or descent restores a human scale to Via Randa. The route is not only a historic line: it is made of effort, pauses, encounters and gestures repeated over time.

The descent passes through Mediterranean scrub, cultivated land and traces of work. Aromatic and medicinal plants are joined by the votive conetta, Ponte Alessi, the old Calcificio and, on reaching the valley, the aroma of coffee from Torrefazione Guglielmo.

They are different elements, but together they describe a lived-in landscape: nature, devotion, industry and everyday memory along the same road.