Capri

Quite unintentionally, I woke up and got going earlier than usual this morning. This was a good news/bad news situation.

The good news was that I’d get to my destination for the day, Capri, earlier than I expected and therefore I would, I hoped, have more time there. The bad news was that I am even more tired than usual.

This is why I don’t like to buy timed tickets in advance for activities if I think I can avoid doing so reasonably safely. Making a hard commitment in advance negates the possibility of flexibility, such as taking advantage of an earlier start than expected.

After breakfast, I headed to the Sorrento port and bought my ferry tickets to and from Capri, but not according to plan.

I’d checked the ferry timetable and knew, based on the scheduled ferry times and my earlier-than-expected start, which boats I wanted to take coming and going. I intended to get the same ferry back as I had planned before I realized that I’d get to Capri earlier, thereby giving me, as I said, more time there than originally expected.

When I got to the ticketing area I saw that there were multiple lines with boats to Capri. Each had a sign in front of their ticket office listing their departure and return times to and from Capri. All of them advertised only two-way tickets. I imagine I could have bought a one-way ticket if I asked, but my hotel for the night was still in Sorrento.

I found a window that sold tickets to more than one of those lines, including for all of the times that my online source, Rome2Rio, had provided me. Buying my return ticket at that window meant that I could take different lines coming and going to get the most convenient times for both directions.

The time I’d already decided on for the trip from Sorrento, just 15 minutes from when I was at the ticket office was available. But the return time I wanted wasn’t. Nor were any of the boats after that. They were all sold out.

I had to buy a ticket for a return trip more than an hour before the one I wanted. Consequently, despite my earlier start, I’ll have a little less time in Capri than my original plan. Had I bought my tickets online enough in advance to get the times I originally wanted before I knew I’d get moving earlier than usual this morning, then, even with the later start, I would have had a little more time to enjoy the island. I think there’s a lesson in there somewhere. I’ll try to figure out what it is sometime.

The ferry I was on going to Capri was relatively small. As a result, the ride was quite choppy despite a sea that was not particularly rough. Fortunately, it’s only a short trip, just twenty minutes. If it had been any longer I might have left my breakfast on the boat. But I arrived in Capri with the contents of my digestive tract intact.

The Port of Capri

The island of Capri consists of two towns, Capri and Anacapri. Capri is the much better known of them. The rest of the island contains a lot of very high rock, veritable mountains, with sheer sides, and not a heck of a lot else other than spectacular scenery and vistas.

Capri’s main port is at the sea, as ports tend to be, by the town of Capri.

The relatively narrow strip of flat land behind the port contains a collection of tacky stores and restaurants, as well as tour ticket offices. The best idea if you visit Capri is to spend as little time as possible in that area.

The central part of Capri is atop a high hill. (I’ll stop calling it the “town of Capri” henceforth. When I mean the island I’ll say so.) The literal and figurative high end of Capri is this central part.

It’s literally the high end because, come on people. Pay at least a modicum of attention. I just told you that it’s atop a hill. Keep up, people. Keep up.

It’s the figurative high end because, in contrast to the scuzzy stores by the port, among the first shops I saw up top were Prada, Ferragamo, Dolce & Gabbana Casa, and Chanel.

I probably should clear something up. Capri continues to climb up the hill from its central core. So when I say “literally the high end,” I mean the whole rest of Capri is higher than the scuzzy part down at the port. But the high-end stores are not at the highest point in town.

Capri is a major tourist destination. As evidenced by my presence, not everyone who visits it is rich. So there are stores and restaurants for middle-income folks as well. But during my wanderings, I didn’t see any stores that low-income people could patronize without it ending in tears.

I didn’t, for example, see any dollar stores. This isn’t surprising as they use euros, not dollars, here. But I didn’t see any euro equivalents either.

Getting Between the Port and Central Capri

There are two ways for the touring hordes to get from the port area to central Capri. A bus travels the winding road up the hill. Or there’s a funicular that takes a direct route up.

I imagine there are also taxis, but I didn’t see any.

I suppose it’s also possible to walk up the road, but I don’t know how safe that is. And there may be some stairs somewhere, but, if so, I didn’t see them or read about them.

I took the funicular.

It’s an interesting funicular. There’s a single track running out of the upper and lower stations. But there are two funicular trains. One goes up while the other goes down. The two are linked by a cable so they act as counterweights for each other.

How, you might ask, can funicular trains go up and down simultaneously with only one track?

I’m glad you asked. The track splits in two for a short distance—not much longer than one of the funicular trains—halfway between the two stations so they can pass each other at that point. Most of the funicular ride runs out in the open, but the pass-by happens in a tunnel. I don’t know if that’s just a coincidence or if it’s so people won’t witness the crashes.

I haven’t worked out the mathematics of it, but I think that because the two trains are connected by a taut cable, that assures that they will always cross at exactly that point as opposed to, say, crashing into each other on the much longer single-track portions, possibly causing considerable death and destruction. This cable-enabled choreography allows the two funicular trains to cross paths without the slightest pause.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this funicular design at least once, and maybe more times, in my travels. I can’t remember where. But I’ve been to Capri once before, so it’s not impossible that it was only here that I saw it.

Central Capris

I’ve already mentioned a couple of the stores in Central Capri, but the town is filled with shops and restaurants lining laneways. Not all of them are high-end brand names.

About those laneways. There is a vehicular road that goes from the port to central Capri and on to Anacapri. I never saw it in my ramblings around Capri this morning. I only saw it in the port. I don’t know where it makes contact with the main part of Capri.

All of the streets I saw in central Capri and out to the outlying areas, including the only named site I visited this morning, were mostly walkways, not normal vehicular streets.

When I said “mostly walkways,” I didn’t mean some portions weren’t. I meant that was their primary purpose. And when I said “not normal vehicular streets,“ “normal” carried all of the weight in that phrase.

There are a few vehicles that ply the walkways. They all seem to be electrically powered. And they all appear to be not much more than half the width of a normal passenger car, if that.

These vehicles transport goods, building materials, and people. The passenger vehicles only have room for one or two passengers. (I’m not sure which. They’re fully enclosed and I couldn’t see clearly inside.) I assume the city also moves garbage with that width of vehicle, but I didn’t see any garbage clown cars this morning.

If you’re on a lane with buildings or privacy walls on both sides when one of those vehicles passes you in either direction there is room to survive the experience if you invade a wall’s personal space. If I was near a doorway at the time I usually ducked into it. But the door recesses tend to be narrow so that only provided slightly more comfort.

Along the laneways beyond the core, there are residences, more hotels, and a few more restaurants, but few shops.

After doing my wandering in town, I set out to visit one of the sites my guidebook recommended, Villa Jovis.

Villa Jovis

It took me about 45 minutes to walk to Vila Jovis. Almost the entire way was along the above-described lanes. The difference is, once I got outside of central Capri, there were few buildings on either side of the lane. However one or two of the above-described vehicles did pass me.

Almost the entire way was uphill. None of it was an overly precipitous climb, but some of it was reasonably steep.

The one portion of the route that wasn’t laneway was some stairs just before Villa Jovis.

I bet you were worried that I’d never get around to telling you what Villa Jovis is.

The wait is over.

Villa Jovis is or, more appropriately, was a villa. Duh.

The Roman Emperor Tiberius commissioned it. He commissioned 12 villas in various places, but the one he commissioned on the Island of Capri was the biggest.

Villa Jovis has seen better days. Today it’s ruins. For the most part, just the lower portion of the walls now stand. Only one section has pretty much full walls. Having said that, at almost 2,000 years old you can forgive it for being ruins. (My guidebook didn’t give dates for its construction. But Tiberius was emperor between 14 and 37 CE, so I assume it was sometime between those years.)

I’m 71 and I’m already turning into ruins. So I’ve got nothing on Villa Jovis.

One thing that neither nature nor marauders can take away in a mere two thousand years is the spectacular views of trees, mountains, and sea seen from the grounds of Villa Jovis. It’s not an accident that the views are so amazing up there. That’s why Tiberius chose the spot despite its remoteness making construction more difficult.

Ruins and amazing vistas seem to have unintentionally become a recurring theme on this trip so far. One can certainly do worse than that.

I hadn’t walked far after leaving Villa Jovis to return to Capri when I passed a reasonably large group of what I think were teenagers. I assume they were a school group on a field trip. It’s early April. School is still in session.

Judging from the language they spoke (English) and their accents, I’d say they were a British school group.

I have no aptitude for pinpointing accents, but to my ear, they sounded like a posh English school group. Evidence supporting this was the fact that they were on the Island of Capri. How many non-posh school groups get field trips to Capri?

All that is neither here nor there. Here’s the part I enjoyed. A few of those teenagers were huffing and puffing after their hike up to Villa Jovis much more heavily than I huffed and puffed at that point. Score one for the old guy.

Because the walk back was downhill, it didn’t take me as long to return to the core of Capri as it took me to walk out to Villa Jovis.

After walking back to central Capri, it was time to find a nice restaurant for lunch. With the help of the ratings on Google Maps and TripAdvisor, I did.

Lunch

I had lunch at a restaurant on a reasonably quiet street up from the main part of Capri. I got an outdoor table and ordered spaghetti with clams and tomatoes. As usual, I had a glass of wine and some sparkling water. One has to wash one’s meal down with something, doesn’t one? I quite enjoyed it.

I finished with an espresso. When the waiter brought the espresso he also brought a free shot of limoncello as a digestivo. Consequently, I fully digested my lunch and got a little more mellow to boot.

Just as an aside, on one or two previous trips to Italy, waiters frequently brought a free limoncello digestivo after the meal. I forget where that was, but not here in the heart of limoncello country. But this was the first time I got a free shot on this trip.

This afternoon’s activities are going to be brief for a couple of reasons that I’ll get into when I post about them this afternoon. So stay tuned for a likely short post later.