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A PLEASURABLE VISITOur two days in Capri were just right. The real truth is that our one night was the highlight of the trip and, unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the town square where we spent several wonderful hours eating dolci, drinking coffee, enjoying the balmy night, enjoying each other's company and watching the people. If you have never whiled away an evening or an afternoon in a town piazza, come to Italy just for that. Beautiful weather, no cares, enveloped in the history of the village and no reason to do anything else . This was actually not a difficult picture to take when you use physics to your advantage. Put the camera in a plastic baggy with a double twist of rubber band. Tape it to your head with duct tape. Run the length of the boat on deck...now you are going faster than the boat. Leap into the water, swim a few feet, turn and shoot the picture. There is a trick for getting back on the boat, but I'll save that for later. If you take the standard ferry over, it takes about twice as long as our 45 minute trip. We took a hydrofoil back, but I wasn't impressed. It was a little faster, but not as comfortable.
This is the wake of our boat with Naples, Mergellina actually, in the background. Mount Vesuvius would be off to the right and we live about 10 miles to the left.
We visited in German month (June). Most countries in Europe have a vacation month. In Italy it's August. Many restaurants and most shops are closed for the month. The city empties to the beaches and the country side.
Taken from Anacapri, with a view of the harbor, Villa Jovis on the top of the high point (more later) and Sorento in the background. I would like to be rich enough to own one of these yachts and sail the Mediterranean all summer. If you have any doubts, I'll take your turn!
From the harbor to the town of Capri, you can walk, no one does, take the bus, the smarter do, or ride the Finicularli, most do. The walk is an hour up hill, the Finicularli line in tourist season is about 30 minutes depending on the crowd, and the bus is about 10 minutes. Take the Finicularli; its worth the wait. The Finicularli is a cable car built like a set of big stairs on wheels. As you can see from this picture, there are several compartments in front of Carol and each is at a lower level. Naples has three or four Finicularli's. In 1880 the song Funiculi Funicula was popular in the US. I'm singing it now. Carol likes to listen with her hands over her ears and the cat is under the couch.
Our first view from the City of Capri. Everything on the island is lush. We saw a Bird-of-Paradise plant that was at least 20 feet tall. You will see in some of the other shots that the island is a tropical paradise.
We should have chosen our hotel by number of stairs rather than number of stars. This lovely walk was the beginning of an 800 mile journey on foot up hill to our hotel. The key words being UP, HILL and ON FOOT. We iterated our way (in 85 degree weather) to the hotel by taking all the wrong roads first. Carol eventually relented and let me carry all the luggage. What happened to women's lib?
Note the Roman arch at the left on the wall with the ceramic tiles showing the way to the various hotels and sites.
Close up of the tile pointing to our hotel, Pensione BELSITO. I had to work hard at making this picture readable because I had sweat on the camera lens.
From the guide book: Villa Jovis is "The majestic remains of a magnificent Roman villa dating back to the Imperial Age..." It was the self-chosen exile residence of Emperor Tiberius from 27 to about 37 AD, when he died. (I don't know where he lived before that, maybe the barracks.) On the way down, we stopped at a little Restaurant (other red arrow) for a pannio (sandwich). A Caprise sandwich...from the gods. A wonderful flat bread, with the center scooped out, rubbed with olive oil, and layered with fresh Basil leaves, mozzarella de buffala and tomato slices.
This is a post card view looking from the Villa Jovis (from the red arrow in the previous picture) back across the island to Anacapri. Tiberius' had a nice view, but a long walk home from the tavern in Capri. Its rumored that he was a heavy drinker and had calves like Popeye's forearms.
A guy with a hang over and aching calves is not one to toy with. If you got on Tiberius' bad side, he would show you this 1000 foot high view of the water just before giving you one lesson in cliff diving. If you look real close, you can see the finger nail marks of some of the less enthusiastic trainees. |
The Jovis Villa is under the red arrow. Note how high up it is and how
far we walked to get there. People twice our age started with us and arrived ahead
of us. Germans, I'll bet. 
