Day Trip to Capri

Marina Grande

    With Frank Sinatra's famous tune 'Isle of Capri' in my head all day, I (along with my sister and her friends who were on their spring break trip and spent two days with me in Castellammare, Sorrento and Capri) set out on an journey to the lovely isle of Capri off the peninsula of Sorrento. We felt the warm breezes and clear skies of summer on our ferry ride over to the Marina Grande, the main port of Capri. I'm fortunate enough to set foot on the island for a second time, as I visited it on a school trip in my junior year of high school. It is exactly as I remembered it, and remains to be my favorite location in Italy so far.

Capri is famous for its cliffs, the blue grotto and its all over beauty. After a failed attempt to rent scooters to tour and scour the island with, our first adventure was to the Grotto Azzura, the Blue Grotto, a cave who's clear blue water reflects onto the rocky ceiling. The boat tour took us all around the island, past the towering cliffs littered with houses, green shrubs, shrines and mountain goats. 


 We arrived at the entrance of the blue grotto, where multiple boats took eagerly awaiting tourists through the minuscule gap between rock and water.
Entrance to the Blue Grotto
Us four blondies (and one red head) piled into a boat, along with an elderly Italian man and of course, the driver/rower of the vessel. Though charming at first with his lulling, Italian voice and entertainment of song, he quickly became obnoxious, making farting noises that echoed off the cave walls. But we laughed. No picture could do the grotto justice, but at least it is an introduction to the unique color. 
Ducking into the grotto

Inside the grotto
   Capri is a large enough and populated enough island that just wandering narrow, white-walled cobblestone streets can entertain you for hours. We stumbled upon a ruin that is now a high school, a church at the top of a hill that was giving away books in exchange for an offering, and the Gardens of Augustus. From these gardens, we had a view that reminds me why I am obsessed with towering vistas.

   We missed our opportunity to take the chair lift to the top of the island from Anacapri, as it closed at 4:00 and we arrived fifteen minutes after. We spent our last few hours leisurely strolling the Marina Grande, before we were seduced into having drinks at the restaurant of a dancing, bald Italian man who was slightly infatuated with my sister.
   The trip ended all too suddenly, and Kelly and her friends had to make their way back to Milan to go home. I've speculated on how I can home back to the island, and have come to conclusion that I'll become rich enough to retire to one of the villas on Capri overlooking the Mediterranean.