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CAPRI
Tuesday, 17 May. Today
we were going to Capri. We got up at 7:45. The day was partly cloudy
and windy. We had breakfast in the garden, but it was cool. We found
the shop that sold bus tickets to Marina Piccola, then waited
at the bus stop in Piazza San't Antonino. Two buses went by
without stopping in spite of my frantically waving my arms. The
third bus stopped for us, and we got to the Marina just before
10:30. There were long lines of people waiting both to buy tickets
for the aliscafo (hydrofoil) and then to board it. When I
finally got our tickets, they were for the 10:45 trip to Capri and
the 3:30 return trip. I hadn't asked for that return time and was
concerned whether that meant we had to return then or could take any
trip back, but there was no one to ask. Our aliscafo was 15 minutes late leaving and we got to Capri's Marina Grande at 11:30. As we passed a beach side restaurant, I saw an employee there with a bunch of tourist maps, and I took one. That was a big help during our visit there.
We found the ticket booth for the funiculare up to Capri Town. The line wasn't too bad. They also sold bus tickets there, but we didn’t know exactly what we’d need, so we didn’t buy those. Then we found the entrance to the funiculare and had only a short wait there. We were up in Capri Town (Piazza Umberto I) at noon, just a half hour after we got off the boat. After just a short look around to get our bearings, we took the bus up to Anacapri. The bus was very crowded and this time no one offered Jane a seat. The road had a series of hairpin turns, and we were thrown back and forth repeatedly. The bus dropped us at Piazza Vittoria about 12:20. We walked up Via Orlandi, the main pedestrian street, very picturesque and lined with shops. While the street was interesting and had nice views, taking it turned out to be a mistake because it consumed so much of our time.
Our map showed two tourist attractions along
the way. We came first to the Casa Rossa (Red House), built
1876-99 by an American colonel who also bought Capri's famous Blue
Grotto and a nearby Roman villa. The house was an architectural
hodge-podge badly in need of paint. It houses an eclectic museum,
but we chose not to spend our time going through it.
The other attraction shown on the map was the Church of San Michele (1698-1727) on the Piazza San Nicola. The church is noted for its unusual majolica floor mosaic of the Garden of Eden. About 1:00 we walked back to Piazza Vittorio where we stopped at an outdoor restaurant for a panino sandwich. I really wasn't hungry, so I went exploring while Jane ate. I found a sign for the Villa San Michele and suddenly recalled that we had visited the it back in 1962. I remembered the striking view from there, but not much else. I finally found the Villa quite far down another little pedestrian street. I quickly ran (literally) back to get Jane, and she came back with me. By then it was almost 1:30 and we didn’t think we had time to wait for and take the 2:00 tour of the Villa. We still wanted to explore Capri Town and see the Faraglione and had no idea how long that would take. So we just walked around the outside of Villa San Michele and enjoyed the spectacular view from there. In retrospect, we should have taken the time to tour the Villa. This was another example of how poorly prepared we were for our visit to Capri.
We then walked back to Piazza Vittoria to catch the bus down to Capri Town. After a short wait, the bus came, and this time we both got seats, allowing us to enjoy the views on the way down. It was 2:15 by the time we got off the bus. Our first priority was to get to the south shore of the island where we could see the Faraglioni, the iconic three-rock formation that has become the symbol of Capri. From the bus stop in Capri Town, we walked the short distance to Piazza Umberto from which all the various streets of Capri Town seem to begin.
I couldn't tell from the map which one to take, so we just
followed the flow of the crowd. And there certainly was a crowd!
Once we left the broad square and started down Via Victor Emanuele,
a typical narrow little street, people were packed like sardines.
But they were moving in both directions, and there was a lot of
jostling in the middle where they met. If one person stopped to look
at one of the many shops lining the way, traffic stopped completely
in both directions.
The name of the street changed from Via
Emanuele to Via Serena, but it was still headed south so we were
confident we were going the right way. Then we came to a "T" and had
to choose. Viale Mattteotti seemed more crowded, so we took that.
Eventually it ended at Via Krupp. That street led away from the
Faraglioni, but there were signs on it for the Gardini di Augusto
(Gardens of Augustus). That seemed worth seeing, so we followed
that. The most
prominent structure in sight along the way was the Certosa (Carthusian
monastery) di San Giacomo (founded 1363, rebuilt 1553, now a
museum).
We headed west and found the Gardens' inconspicuous
entrance. There a flight of steps led us up to a vantage point from
which, finally, we had an excellent view of the Faraglioni.
Pharos in Greek (faro in Italian) means
"lighthouse." In ancient times fires were lit on the rocks at night
to alert ships of the hazard, and this was the origin of their name.
The tallest of the rocks (Stella) is actually joined to the coast.
The small one in the middle (Mezzo) has a hole near its center
through which small boats can pass. The outer rock is called Scopolo.
The Gardens of Augustus were beautiful, too. There were winding lanes lined with flowers, Roman statues, and even a huge concrete bench faced with decorative ceramic tiles. The sun had been in and out all day, but now it was sunny and warm.
Looking almost straight down over a railing,
we could see the small inlet that marked Marina Piccola, but
we would have had to descend a flight of some 200 steps to reach it. Jane
could never make it. Besides, it was already 3:00 and we decided to start
back. We didn't expect to catch the 3:30 boat (as our tickets indicated), but
we worried that we might not be able to get on any boat if we waited
until the thousands of day-trippers on Capri were all trying to
leave.
We retraced our steps to Piazza Umberto. There wasn't much of a line for the funiculare going down to Marina Grande, so we got down there very fast. It was about 3:20, and I realized that we might actually be able to catch the 3:30 aliscafo. After all, it had been 15 minutes late leaving Sorrento that morning, and we already had our tickets.
We hurried over to where we'd debarked, but
there was no sign of the boat. We inquired of men working around
there, but no one could help. I went over to where some taxis were
waiting, and a driver told me the boat left from pier ten. That was
near the end of a long L-shaped pier. Leaving Jane to catch up, I
ran all the way to pier ten, passing one to nine along the way. I
noticed a lot of people at pier five, but they were only obstacles
to be dodged as I raced by. There was no aliscafo at pier
10, only a large private boat. I walked back dejected. As I came to
pier five, I saw an aliscafo leaving. It looked a lot like
the one we came on.
Back on shore, I asked a policeman how to find out when the next boat left for Sorrento. He said there was an electronic board in front of the Port Authority that listed the departure times and piers for all boats. Jane and I found the board, and there was our 3:30 boat listed as leaving from pier five. We easily could have caught it, but I had run right past it. The next boat was at 4:05 at the pier where we'd arrived that morning. We went over there and got in the long line, thinking we were too far back to get on. However, it turned out that the boat was a huge ferry, taking cars and several hundred passengers. This was the boat that took the bulk of the day-trippers back to Sorrento. It was so big that I didn't think it could be a hydrofoil, but it was very fast, getting us to Sorrento in less than 40 minutes. We were ashore by 4:45 and caught a bus to Piazza San't Antonino at 5:00.
On the way to the Casa Dominova we stopped by Monica]s office to book a private van to the Naples airport for the next day. Although it cost $50 when we could take a nonstop bus for $11 each, we decided the convenience was worth it. Before the trip, I had searched the Internet for the same service and didn't find anything less than 80 Euros ($120). The van would pick us up at the B&B, handle our luggage at both ends, and we could name our time. We got to our room at 5:30 and rested for a while. At 7:30 we went to the Taverna della 800 for the third time and had another delicious meal. We finished eating at 8:45 and went right back to our room.
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