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Capri View
The view from the top of the funicular railway down to the harbour.Needless to say, it was cakes and homemade marmalade on toast for breakfast. There was a bottle of Prosecco, which I thought it would be rude not to try, albeit mixed with orange juice as I'm not a complete alcoholic.
The plan for today was to go to the island of Capri, so we headed off for the harbour. It was a surprisingly long way down, so it involved a long set of steps. Down was easy, although we're not looking forward to the climb back up later.
Of course, we bypassed all the touts selling boat tickets and tours, and found what looked like the official ticket office. All the windows were closed, which was worrying as it looked like we were going to have to go back, with our tails between our legs and humbly take the touts up on their tickets. Fortunately, we found the official ticket-office, which for some reason was operating out of a caravan in the carpark.
They must be replacing the terminal building or something as the toilets in there were by far the worst we have come across in a long while - the flushes were all broken and they
Breakfast
It'll be healthy choices for breakfast when we get back home. didn’t look or smell like they'd been flushed or cleaned in weeks.
The boat was due to leave at 10.45am, but in Italian time, that was more like 11.00am. Remember, chill, we're in Southern Europe. The water was nice and calm so it was a very smooth crossing, taking about 30 minutes. We had spent longer waiting in the queue than actually travelling to Capri.
One of the boat employees went to the front to talk to everyone. We were expecting a safety briefing, but there was none of that as, of course, it was to sell us all tickets for a tour once we arrived.
We started with a walk around Marina Grande, which is the town by the harbour, and we looked in a couple of shops. There was a really nice little shop that had lots of things made by local artists, with each artist's work taking up a section of the shop. There was a restaurant where everyone had drinks in huge mutant lemons. That might be worth trying later.
Opposite the harbour is a funicular railway up to Capri town, so we thought we would give that a go. Again, it
Prosecco Breakfast
It'll be ok for breakfast won't it - maybe with some orange juice (surprisingly there's no lemon)? was a battle to work out where to buy the tickets and we eventually found the elusive ticket office back where you’d expect to be buying tickets for the boats. Whenever we're buying tickets now, we always have that uneasy feeling of "is this the right place or are we being mugged again?"
The railway was cramped, to put it mildly, and pretty much standing room only, so it was a relief when we got to the top and could all spill out and get some air. The views from the top were stunning, looking back down on the harbour below.
We walked around for a while and looked in a few shops before deciding to stop for a drink in the main square. The atmosphere was nice enough, but stopping there was a big mistake. It was €14 for a beer (and not even a big one like back in Sorrento - see
Lemons, Mutant Lemons, Lemon Merchandise and, in a Moment of Madness, a Lemon Drink) and €13 for a crushed-ice lemon drink called a Granita (and it wasn't even out of a mutant lemon). With the addition of the cover charge for the tray of crisps that we didn’t ask for, it was over €70 for a round
Boat
The boat from Sorrento to Capri. of four drinks. It took us a while to come to terms with that and I'm now going through weeks of therapy to get over it.
After a bit more of a walk around, including some streets that were actually carved though the sides of the mountains, it was time to head back down. Furthermore a lot of places were closed, presumably for siesta-time. Southern Europe! There are some steps back down to Marina Grande, but after a very short debate, we decided against that option and got back on the funicular railway.
We were booked on the 3.28pm boat back to Sorrento, so we didn't have a lot of time and were not able to go on any of the boat excursions, including the Blue Grotto, which looked appealing. Apparently, it's quite time consuming as everyone needs to wait for small rowing boats to take them into the actual grotto and to be honest, we’ve done a lot of caves and grottos in our time already (see
Glow Worm Caves,
Holy Intermittent WiFi Batman and
Burglarising, Thieving, Mugging and Fighting Moneys).
It was queue chaos back at the harbour, so we just had to accept the fact that we are not in Britain and we were
Lemon Gifts
The gifts are all also lemon themed in Capri. going to just learn to go along with it. It came good though as the boat docked opposite where we were standing, rather than near the front of the queue so we got straight on, whilst justifying our outrageous behaviour by the fact that we're in Italy so we do as the Italians do. The boat actually left bang on time.
Being amongst the first on, we managed to get some great seats on the upper deck, so we were able to enjoy the views back of Capri, of Vesuvius peacefully in the distance and of Sorrento as we arrived.
We debated getting a taxi or the little road-train back up to Sorrento, but decided that we would go for it and use the steps. We actually managed to find a better way up by walking along the winding road for a while to a different set of steps to those that we came down. A group of people who were going up at the same time counted 131 steps, so it really wasn't that bad.
There was actually another football celebration going on when we got back as, apparently, the local Sorrento team had just been
Funicular Railway
The crossing point with the train coming in the other direction. promoted to a higher league. There were bangs from all the fireworks that were going off (the friends we were travelling with reassured us that it was not Vesuvius coming back to life again), car horns and lots of shouting.
We stopped quickly at the supermarket and I got a bottle of Limoncello to take back with me.
We had decided that we would go back to the restaurant where I had previously gone for the sunsets. It was fully booked, which we realised was actually a blessing when we saw the prices. We walked back to the main square and found a nice looking restaurant there. It didn’t look particularly posh, but they had a wine-list that must have had 300 wines on it, some as much as €1,500 per bottle. I had a beer.
The others had wine, but we were sure to check what had arrived before the bottle was opened. That therapy I mentioned earlier would be times a hundred if we had misordered the wine.
There was a bit of entertainment as some football fans came past, playing music, shouting and letting off more fireworks. These were not just a handful
Capri Clock Tower
The clock in the main square in Capri town (and the football is also a big deal here given all the decorations). of fireworks, they were full on and to the level that in Britain would be behind numerous levels of safety barriers and only after multiple health and safety risk assessments had been carried out. Here, they're launched from the middle of a crowd of people in the street. Remind me, one of the reasons we left the EU was to get away from European rules and regulations - well none of that seems to apply here?
We need to leave early in the morning to get to the airport and we had no idea if there would be anyone on reception, so we checked-out when we got back to the hotel. Sadly we would miss breakfast, but we could order a "breakfast box" that would be ready waiting for us in the morning. We also booked a taxi to the airport, also to be safe.
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