Wed 6 Nov 2002
Our Italian Vacation, Day 6: The Isle of Capri
Posted by Ken Atherton under Uncategorized
1 Comment
We decided to pay for one tour while we were staying in the Napoli region: a trip to the Isle of Capri. Realistically, we probably could have saved a little money doing it ourselves, but we decided it was worth allowing someone else figure out the details, like when, where, and how to meet the boat for transportation to the island.
The tour left at around 7AM. It Was a little difficult to get the girls up at that hour, but we did it anyway. CeCe was a little wild on the bus, but Rissa was pretty quiet.
The bus to the dock at Salerno was pretty slow, and it was complicated by the fact that we stopped at several other hotels to pick up other tourists. The trip back in the evening was worse though, because traffic was really heavy, much worse than it had been in the morning.
Once we arrived in Salerno, we boarded a large passenger boat. Avery crowded passenger boat. The route to Capri from Salerno skims along the south side of the Amalfi coast, where we drove yesterday, and the all of the seats on that side of the boat were already occupied when we boarded.
That didn’t stop us from seeing a lot of the beautiful scenery we saw yesterday from the opposite viewpoint. The trip itself was longer than we expected, and it was almost 11 by the time we disembarked.
The island itself is not very big, but it makes up for its length and width shortcomings by being largely vertical. There are two villages on the island: Capri and Anacapri. When you arrive you can either take a taxi (the only cars on the island) to the villages or you can take the funicular to Capri. We elected to take the funicular.
We bought lunch atone of the many bakeries-it consisted of cold pizza, more or less. We ate while sitting in the middle of one of the “streets”.
Because there are almost no cars on the island, the streets are really just glorified paved walking paths. It makes the walk claustrophobic in some areas, since the buildings are packed so close together, especially near the (very expensive) shopping district.
The really odd thing about Capri though, is that it is hard to actually sight-see. The island is beautiful, but most of the interesting locations are spread far apart. We only saw a fraction of these, partly because we had to drag the girls along, but I don’t think it would have made much difference anyway. We never even made it to Anacapri.
I think to really see Capri, you would need to stay a few days at one of the hotels on the island. It’s very hard to see in one day.
We did manage to see several of the natural wonders on the island and a beautiful garden. And as I mentioned before, there are beautiful views almost any direction you look. We had to return to the boat at5:30PM, which in some ways made the day seem too short, but I don’t think we could have put the girls through much more. It was very hot, and the crowds were often very rude even by Italian standards.
We arrived back at our hotel at9PM, just barely in time to get dinner at the restaurant. Nobody had to be rocked to sleep on this night.
CeCe, enjoying the view.
This is a picture of the Natural Arch. I would have gotten closer to take the picture, but the path I was on sloped down towards the railing. You can’t see it in the picture, but the post near the center of the picture has broken free of the concrete, and another whole section has been replaced by chicken wire. There was a woman here who I thought was going to have a heart attack out of fear that Carissa was going to go through the chicken wire while I was taking the picture.
