CAPRI

Pasquale drove us down to the pier this a.m. for the tour he had scheduled us for to Capri. Maria was our delightful guide for the day. Cathy came to my rescue with a loaned hat (I think I left mine last night at the restaurant nearby) and sunglasses ( I THOUGHT I had brought my new glasses that darken when in the sun! NO, I brought my older ones, and no sunglasses!! 

We had 29 in our group and we joined a boatload of people for the 1/2 or so ride to the island. This is where Angela’s parents had spent their honeymoon 62 years ago and conceived her!!!

On arrival we then boarded a boat for a trip around the 17 km perimeter of the island. Maria pointed out where Emperor Tiberius had his villa and spend a decade AD 26-37 here. We passed a cave where she said Tiberius took his honeys and when he was through with them, threw them down the cliffs!! Nice guy!

Augustus traded his family-owned Isle of Ischia to the (then independent) Neapolitans in exchange for making Capri his personal property. 

In the 19th century aristocrats on their Grand Tour included Capri. Later it was briefly a refuge for Europe’s artsy gay community: Oscar Wilde, D. H. Lawrence hung out here. Many Italian wealthy people, designers, et. have homes here. Mariah Carey has one. 

Angela on chairlift

Perfume making

We passed the Coral, White, Green and Blue grottos. We didn’t go in as our boat only paused to watch. There was a huge line of tourists waiting and we didn’t have time to wait. We sailed through an arching rock where couples seal their love with a kiss! The white cliffs along the edges of Capri soar out of the crystal clear blue-green waters! Would have loved to swim in it but saw no one doing so. There are only tiny beaches here and there. 13,000 people live here; maybe 4-5,000 in smaller AnaCapri and the rest in larger and more upscale Capri itself. Maria told us there was always competition between the two. There are two town halls, two school systems, two patron saints, etc.!!

As we docked back at Capri, we had a choice. Angie and I decided to stay with Maria and do the mini-van tour that included going over the “Mamma Mia” road up to AnaCapri. I really wanted to ride the ski lift up to the highest point, Mt. ??? for the view. We had two hours each to wander around each of the towns. 

The lift was a single chair that carried you for 13 minutes up to the top. It sounds scary but was a delightful ride up and back. On the top the view was 360 degrees, looking back on Vesuvius, Naples and the Sorrento peninsula close by. Angie didn’t want the ride down to end, it was so relaxing - if you weren’t afraid of heights! 

I think the vans and I know the taxis on this island were especially designed to pass each other on these incredibly narrow roads! I had to shut my eyes and Angie patted my hand as we careened up and down that “Mamma Mia” road to and from AnaCapri!!! A couple of times we saw vans having to back up to enable the other to get around. I’ve heard it’s even more hair-raising on the Amalfi Coast road with the larger tour buses. We’ll see!

Since my dinner down at the port in a Pasquale-recommended restaurant, of fried local fish - lots with heads and whole bodies that got left on the plate for the many roaming cats around!, I was very hungry by lunchtime. Maria had told us with our tour sticker we could get a E13 lunch with wine, main course and dessert, without the added on service charges! So after the lift ride, we settled in at the VERY busy Terrace restaurant in AnaCapri. I had the most delicious sea bass - two pieces with fries!! Our mistake when we mentioned the wine was they brought us EACH a small bottle, not a glass. So we paid E19 instead of E13 and got no dessert, when we realized our mistake! It was still SOOO worth it! 

Pasquale has been great about giving us rides down and up this LOOONG road to his house. He dropped us off at the port for this trip because the usual tour van couldn’t get us because of the Tuesday market near us that day. As Pasquale wended his way through the parked cars and people, we understood the chaos! The tour van would drop us back at the bottom of our road at the end of the tour. The night before we had wandered around town in the afternoon and then went to the “fish-with-heads” dinner (mine, the other girls had a great meal!) so we walked to the restaurant down by the port. Pasquale had arranged with his owner-friend Luigi that a van drive us back up to the foot of our road and we walked it at night. But it was well lit and pleasant!

Today’s tour was a real taste of what it’s like all over Italy in the season. The only time we’ve run into crowds like on the trip to Capri was that Sunday in Florence. I would hate to travel here in July and also have to deal with the heat besides! April or October would be the best times to travel Italy, I think!

But we are loving it and almost coming to the end, for Angie and Cathy, who will fly home from Rome on Sunday. We’ve told Anna we will arrive on Friday and will pay Pasquale for the extra 2 days we’re staying here directly, rather than through airbnb. I had cancelled last Sunday because I thought we’d be taking David to the train in Naples and would stay there. We also opted to skip Naples and our night reserved there for this Thursday and stay in Sorrento longer. So we’ve decided to hire a shuttle to take the 3 of us and all our luggage, instead of schlepping through the Naples station and changing trains and platform levels! The shuttle will pick us up at noon and get us directly to the Rome train station around 4. 

When we got home, we used up some leftover potatoes and salad (from my dinner last night), delicious oranges I had bought at one of Pasquale’s neighbors yesterday, and fruit for dinner. That’s one of the pluses of an airbnb - you can usually store food and eat maybe only 1 meal out, which has worked out well for us.