Capri - August 26, 2010

Thursday August 26, 2010

Senne's Summary: Took a boat trip to Capri.

I have wanted to go to Capri since I figured out that the beautiful print we have at home is a landscape from Capri. Capri is an island so another boat trip was in order. We thought about taking the ferry, but found a tour that was reasonable and would probably show us more of the sights around the island rather than just dropping us off in town.

I decided to take the motion sickness tablets before this boat tour, because the boat was quite a bit smaller and going out in the open ocean rather than along the coastline like the previous tour. Boy was I glad I did! I would have surely been sick if I didn’t, that boat was definitely bobbing in the open ocean!

First we traveled along the coastline and our tour guide, who was a local but spoke English with an Aussie accent, told us a story about some of the ruins we saw along the way. We saw the ruins of the Queen of Napoli’s place. Apparently, the Queen of Napoli took many lovers (they estimate about 1000). When she decided she didn’t like them anymore she threw them off the rocky cliff and into the sea. I guess it’s important to have oceanfront if that’s your intention…Steve and I did a little math and came up with, one lover per week, every week, for 20 years (which is how long she reigned)… soooo… she was busy.

As we travelled along our tour guide told us many interesting stories about the people and the land (none quite so interesting as the Queen of Napoli’s story 🥰).

When we got closer to Capri he took us along to a place that the locals call the "Magnificent Cave". The water was an incredible shade of blue, of course the pictures don’t totally capture it. It was nice to be in a little boat because he could actually take the boat right up to it and you could almost touch the rock face.

The next place we stopped was the “White Grotto”. This had an amazing looking cave with a Stalagmite that looked like the Virgin Mary (only in Italy 😁). We both wished we could have got off the boat here to go into the cave a bit more.

Next we headed to the “Green Grotto”. This is an amazing little cave that we got to swim through. The colour of the water was incredible! Again the pictures don’t really do it justice, but at least they’ll remind me of what it was like. The boat driver let us jump into the water on one side, we swam through the grotto and then he picked us up on the other side. It was one of my favourite things we’ve done on this trip. Again, we both wished we had more time… when I’m rich and famous I’ll have to bring my own boat here, then we can stay how ever long we want!

Next we continued around the island and saw Anacapri, and then the Blue Grotto. I’m glad I had researched this a bit. It’s a HUGE tourist draw because it’s been so well publicized. First you have to get to the blue grotto (AKA pay a boat man to take you there), then you have to switch to a smaller rowboat (11.50 per person), then they take you into the grotto in the boat for approximately 2 minutes. You are not allowed to get out and swim. While you are in the grotto the boatmen suggests how much you should tip him when you get out (I’ve heard horror stories of one boatman suggesting a 50 Euro tip). Needless to say no one on our boat tour felt compelled to go in, since we had been able to swim through the green grotto. Our tour guide was also not very impressed with the racket the locals had going on. He said that if people don’t tip the oarsmen enough they just throw the money in the water and tell you it isn’t enough.

Side note: While we were swimming in the green grotto, a guy who had been to the blue grotto told everyone that the green grotto was WAY better 😀

After our trip past the craziness of the blue grotto we anchored the boat while our guide prepared us lunch. We went for a swim in the ocean while he got lunch ready, and then got back on the boat to eat. It was a very yummy lunch.

Going for a swim while someone makes your lunch... it doesn't get much better than that!

Next he dropped us off in Capri and we had a couple of hours to explore. We didn’t really know what we wanted to do, (Well I kind of wanted to find that place from my painting) so we did what everyone else was doing. We took the funicular (little train) up to the main part of town.

We wandered around a bit and it was the same as the other little Italian towns we’ve seen.

View from the top of Capri

So we headed back down to see if we could find the painting place, but couldn’t. It’s clear that it wasn’t in the main part of town… we think it must have been someone’s private residence on another part of the island. To make ourselves feel better we had some gelato 🍨. I followed the gelato with a motion sickness tablet chaser for the trip back to Sorrento.

Next we headed back on the boat to Sorrento.  As we left the island of Capri, Steve noticed a Villa perched high on a rock face…he swears this Villa was used in an old James Bond movie. He took a picture of it so he can research it later.

The view from our boat back to Sorrento was again, amazing. I managed to stay awake on the trip back, and walk home and then I crashed… side effects of the medicine I think 😉

The view as you approach Sorrento

We’re off to Rome on Saturday!