Capri-Land

I made up for my non-tourist behavior at Pompeii with a vengeance by deciding to go full-bore on the ultimate Amalfi/Naples tourist experience: the island of Capri.

My very useful guidebook (a Rick Steves book, which I found in the Daphne) suggested a day trip designed for maximum ground coverage. I took the first ferry from Sorrento at 8:30AM. It disgorged hundreds of tourists into the port town where there were already many hundreds milling around the ticky-tacky waterfront. It’s disorienting and crowded – kind of a Pier 39 experience (pilastro trentanove?). I straight-away fought my way to the ticket counter for the famous Grotto Azzurra. Being as early as it was, I was able to grab the first high speed boat and zipped a few kilos along the northeast shore of the dramatic, cliff-clad island. There were myself and two other passengers on it. I know people queue up by the hundreds to do this thing, so I felt ahead of the game.

As the motorboat roared away from the port, it slowed down for a row boats with single rowing man who approached the motor boat. The rower tossed a line to the motor boat, and got a tow. A few minutes later a second row boat approached the first row boat, as the motor boat again slowed, and the second rower tossed the first rower another line. This continued, making over the next few minutes a small chain of row boats.

When we got to the Blue Grotto, which from the outside is just another section of sheer rock wall in the sea, the row boats dispersed and queued up with the other rowers already there. The Grotto itself is basically a cave – limestone, I think – at the waters’ edge, in which a sea-filled cavern is accessible through a tiny hole only big enough for a single row boat at a time. The gimmick of the place is that the bottom outside edge of the cavern is just below the sea level, and a trick of the sun, water and cavern geometry makes the water and the interior of the cave a brilliant azure. Almost a swimming pool blue.

The rowers take turns entering the cave for a few minutes. There is a chain bolted to the ceiling of the grotto that extends a few meters outside the little opening to the outside and the rock wall. Rowers pull the boats into the hole by grabbing the chain, instructing the passengers to lie low so that don’t conk their heads (you really have to lie on the bottom!) Once inside you appreciate the light for about 5 minutes. The rowers break into strains of “O Solo Mio”, which makes for an incredibly self-conscious experience.

Most people get motored back to Capri harbor, but I knew I could take a bus from this point. I climbed out of the row boat up the rock wall stairs and headed for the bus. While on the stairs, a commotion broke out in the water below. A woman tourist had fallen out of a row boat and everyone was swarming around to pull her out. I maliciously snapped photos of her misfortune. Very funny scene.

At the bus, we waited for the driver cigarette break to end. Our bus driver discovered a dead owl on the ground. He picked it up, and as the drivers all finished their cigs, they passed the stiff bird around for inspection. Cigarette/owl break over, we headed for the second town on the island: Anacapri. Anacapri is charming in a way that Capri is not. It’s still a tourist town, but it’s more understated and with a sense of an actual place to live. I had a nice half hour sketching the main town church over an espresso.

There is another church in Anacapri. Chiesa Monumentale di San Michele. The entire floor is a mosaic of painted tiles. I guess it’s called Napoleatano style? Anyway, it depicts an amazing mural-type image of the story of Eden and The Fall. You can’t walk on the floor anymore, but you can walk around on planks. This floor is of my favorite artworks I’ve seen so far.

I took the tram up to the island peak and had a pretty impressive view of the island and the Amalfi coast. A few hardy (stubborn?) souls hike back. Like me. Another bus ride back to Capri town.

Capri town is a thoroughly touristic place. It has shi-shi shops with expensive designer clothes, watch makers, etc. It also has ticky-tacky souvenir shops. The views are great, amazing, really. You can see azure, clean, rocky, and beautiful waters to swim in. Traveling by myself, I didn’t have an easy way to safeguard my satchel (with my phone, wallet, keys) while swimming. Yet another thing to do when I return with a companion.

Though I didn’t really like Capri-town, I found a way to enjoy it. I sat in the main piazza and nursed beer and studied the skin types and solar exposures of all the tourists ambling around.

I’m sun-phobic myself, by inclination and work experience. I always walk around sun-bleached places like Capri with long pants, tons of sunscreen, a hat with a brim, a neck kerchief, UV glasses and SPF30 lip balm. I look like a dork, I know. Veronica used to make fun of me, as she’d lounge topless on some Mediterranean beach and I looked like an updated Thurston Howell III from Gilligan’s Island. Who’s laughing now, huh? OK, well, actually, Veronica probably is, because her skin still looks better than mine.

I think Nina Jablonski’s book (“Skin: A Natural History”) describes how it used to be before the 20th century - the richer you were, the less sun-darkened you would be. White people who were sun-blasted by the sun was an unmistakable sign of your low class, low wealth status and work-a-day life. Over the last century, it’s flipped. Now, rich people are richly tanned. In spite of all evidence to the contrary on how bad it is, or even how bad it looks over time, people still want that tan. Including all the folks wandering in the piazza. I’m not complaining. That desire is indirectly funding this trip. The money I made at Cutera was largely from people trying to reverse the effects of the sun that they once desired. I’ve looked at so many photos of people damaged by the sun who now needed some laser magic. Happy to oblige, ma’am. At least, I used to be.

I got lost in my musings, relaxing with my $10 beer, and I made my second significant traveling mistake, badly estimating the amount of time it would take to walk from Capri town down to the Capri harbor (my first was losing a critical strap for my bags back in Boston, which I immediately had to replace) I began to walk, then run, and finally sprint, in the 35C heat. I thought it was a kilometer or so, but it turned about to be about 5km. I made it with about 2 minutes to spare. As I leaned forward on the edge of my seat to keep from getting the seat fabric wet, the day-trippers near me politely but surely found other places to sit. I looked at the dots of sweat accumulating on my new hiking boots as my face dripped and my heaving breaths turned to sighs of relief.