Italy: Capri and Positano

Tuesday we woke up early to catch a ferry in Sorrento to go to Capri. To be honest, I was kind of not excited to go to Capri. 1) I didn't think it could live up to the hype and 2) it was going to be so incredibly expensive. Yet I’ve always heard about how beautiful it was, and everyone raves about it so I felt like we had to do it while we were in the neighborhood. (Plus Jessica was really excited to go.) The boat felt like it took 5 minutes—who knew we were so close?


Marina Grande, the first thing you see when you pull up in the ferry



As we got off the boat a little old man approached us about taking a tour around the island on his personal boat. We said no thanks, then three minutes later said, “Which boat is it? How much? Sheesh that’s probably too much for us. We wish.” He kept saying, “And I’ll put the cushions for the lady.” Then 3 minutes later we said, “Alessandro, we’ll do it.” We started thinking about once in a lifetime experiences, and about how there’s no possible way life could get any better than cruising around Capri in the most beautiful wooden boat with a little Caprese man showing us his island. (Plus the people on the big tour boats were being packed like sardines and that sounded terrible.)


Alessandro's boat. I couldn't remember the word for little boat when I was talking to him so I called it his ship. 



Capri by sea is stunning. Huge white cliffs jutting out of the bluest (and sometimes greenest) water. A perfect breeze. Birds flying around the cliff edge having the time of their lives. Arches and grottos. And perfect sun.



Where all the cool writers went to write



The number one thing to do on Capri is the Blue Grotto. I had researched a lot about it because I like to know what to expect, but I kept Jessica in the dark because she sometimes prefers to be surprised. The entrance to the grotto is one meter tall above the water, and about two meters across. You pull up in your boat where you wait for a rowboat to pick you up. You pass by the triumvirate of money-takers where you pay your entrance fee and then the rower tells you to lay down.


The triumverate.



The rower pulls up to the hole, grabs a chain, and when the tide recedes a bit he launches the boat through the hole into the black. You look down and the water is glowing the most incredible blue you’ve ever seen. The only light that enters the cave is the little bit from the opening above water and the rest is from the opening below the water where all of the colors but aqua blue are filtered out. You’re in this large dark cave, with the water glowing blue, and the rowers start singing "O Sole Mio" and it gives you the chills. You’re only in there for about 5 minutes, but it's worth every penny.



After the grotto it was ten minutes back to the marina. When Alessandro handed us the bill he had taken off 20€ because he thought we were such a cute couple. Which we are. We’re an extraordinarily cute couple.



The rest of Capri was about what I expected. We were both a little disenchanted by it. Don't get me wrong, it is incredibly beautiful. It just didn’t feel genuine, instead it felt a little like we were at a part of Disneyland. We could have gone home after Alessandro dropped us off and I wouldn’t have missed the rest that much. We wandered around the narrow streets looking for food, and stopping to look at pictures of every famous person that has ever eaten at every restaurant. We took a tiny bus up an amazing windy road with views that you might literally die for. We took a beautiful lift ride up to the top of the mountain in Anacapri. It was pretty fantastic because it’s a just a single chair at a time. I really loved being able to have an aerial view of people's yards and gardens on the way up. Then we raced to catch the bus to take us to catch the ferry back. The buses are really cute and tiny because the roads are so narrow and windy and it became apparent that we were going to be left behind. It gave me an opportunity to yell at the driver in Italian, but the problem was that I couldn’t yell at the French people in front of us to tell them to squish more.


Anacapri from the chair lift



Thus we had to catch a Barbie taxi. Luckily we shared it with a nice Australian man because we were 6 euro short for the fare (Capri is just as expensive as you hear it is). Our cab driver drove like a mad man around the curves, so it was actually pretty worth it. And we made it!

We had decided to take the ferry to Positano on the Amalfi Coast because we wanted to go there anyway and it would save us a trip. We’d heard the best views are from a boat so we were knocking out two birds with one stone. Positano was positively beautiful, but in a head to head match I would take Cinque Terre 7 times out of 10, granted we didn’t have time to visit the rest of the towns on the coast so maybe that would change the odds.



In the end, I’m so glad that we stayed in Castellamare di Stabia. It’s genuine. It felt so good to be in the center of Italian life again. It just makes you feel alive. I loved experiencing a little bit of the south and can’t wait to get to more of it. There is so much more to see in Italy that we probably need to move there pretty soon.