If you were a Roman emperor, the answer was often Capri. And though in the age of jet travel many more exotic islands are in contention, Capri has held its appeal to the rich and famous for more than 2000 years. Fortunately, if you’re in Naples and have €56 to splash out on a hydrofoil ticket, you can get a slice of the high life for the day.
Capri is only four square miles, with two towns, two harbours (the second one is tiny), and an eye-pleasing amount of land still given over to nature. This is, doubtless, because much of the island is jutting limestone mountains better suited to goats than human habitation. Where there is space for housing, many of the fancy villas are surrounded by lush gardens and even more humble homes tend to have space for olive and lemon trees. The whole place is a vision of glorious, bold colours: the intense blue of the always-present sea, the abundant greens of trees and vegetation, the slashes of white rock, the garish cascades of pink bougainvillea, the yellow pinpricks of lemons. There are about 13,000 residents here, a majority of those in the business of serving the tourists who often more than double the locals’ numbers. That traffic has traditionally been seasonal, with dense crowds in the summer and many businesses closing over the winter. Our late-April timing seemed perfect: everything was open and primed for the season, but there weren’t too many people around yet … especially when we got out of Capri town.
We found it a glorious way to take in the sights and sounds of the island. Yes … sounds. If you don’t get out of Capri town you’ll think of it as a place crowded with noisy humanity, but a few minutes’ drive takes you into hills silent but for the wind, birdsong and the wash of the surf below.
An hour’s hire took us up the slopes of Monte Capello, from which there are stunning views across the bay of Naples towards Vesuvius and the city, then into Anacapri town. While there are hotels, restaurants and plenty of tourist shops up here, this is also where more of the locals live. Anacapri is where I’d be looking if I were to spend the night. Then we went on to the southwestern tip of the island to take a look at the Punta Carena lighthouse; the island here feels much more like a nature reserve than a holiday resort. We doubled back on ourselves and then descended to Marina Piccola, the little port that is on the other side of the island from the big one where we landed.
Calling this a marina is a bit of a stretch of the imagination. It’s a tiny bay with a part-shingle, part-sand crescent of beach, with two other beach areas framed by rock outcrops off to one side. You need to climb the equivalent of about three stories of stairs, past a little chapel and old fisherman’s cottages now given over to shops and tour operators, to get to the water. Any more than 20 people on these side beaches and 40 on the main one would feel crowded, but when we visited it was quiet. The sea was calm, the colours Caribbean, the views of the island towering above us impressive. I could have had spent the whole day here happily had I had time and proper beach shoes. (On arrival I realised I’d been here as a 12-year-old and had the shock, after a life thus far of spending all my summers in Florida, of discovering that there were beaches comprised of something other than sand. Possibly the reason I was less impressed then than I am all these decades later.) But lingering is not on the agenda for the day-tripper.
The biggest aquatic attraction here is the Blue Lagoon, a cave with a big, domed roof only accessible by boat, at low tide on calm days, through a gap in the cliffs. Its most distinctive feature is the vibrant, almost neon turquoise that the water inside the cave glows when it’s bright and sunny outside. I went in as a child and it is extraordinary. But if you want to do this, you need to check on tours at the harbour as soon as you arrive, and that would take up a big chunk of any day trip. You can’t book in advance as it’s impossible to predict if conditions will be good enough to get into the cave.
From our slightly less spectacular encounter with the gulf of Naples, our trusty driver Franco then took us back into Capri town. He’d been a wellspring of knowledge about the island and life on it, very much a guide as well as a driver. He dropped us at the highest point of town into which you can get cars and gave us restaurant tips for places the locals would consider top quality. That’s how we ended up at La Capannina, which I wrote about in my last story.
After a very long, very leisurely lunch with some very good wines, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and wandering aimlessly.
Capri is not a place for bargains, but it scores high on distinctive, hand-crafted items. There’s a lot of beautiful pottery, including the tradition of bells … going back to a story of a lost shepherd being saved by the sound of one … made into wind chimes. Given that the place pulls in the wealthy, there are a lot of jewellery stores, and if I were going to buy any of the locally crafted red coral I certainly saw finer examples and more interesting work here than back in Naples. There are several places you can get sandals custom-made for you in a wide variety of styles while you wait; something I haven’t seen since I splurged on two pairs in Taormina, Sicily. The prices seemed a lot higher than I remember paying, but that was a decade ago as well as a different town. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of small boutiques selling “resort wear”: upscale, elegantly casual stuff that screams class even if you’re just hanging on the beach. The girls were particularly taken with Lagrua, the shop of a local designer who makes all her own stuff on the island. Lots of deconstructed linens pairing contrasting patterns. Most was casual wear that could also make the transition into all but the most formal offices.
I, however, was saved from temptation as I’d already wandered off the main shopping street to explore the back lanes of Capri town. Within a few steps you forget the luxury beach resort and find the peace of quiet, winding paths that have probably been here since the Middle Ages. Venerable stone houses hem you in on either side, with frequent gaps in walls to allow peeks into lovely little gardens. For such a busy place, the quiet was impressive. Except for when I stumbled onto the local primary school as the students noisily tumbled out to their parents.
We’d been warned that the queues for the funicular can back up, so we left Capri town for the harbour below well over an hour before our scheduled boat. There is, naturally, a long esplanade full of shops and bars along the waterside to take advantage of the tourist traffic.
There’s no doubt that Capri is expensive. Lunch here was our priciest meal of the trip. The €20 limoncello spritzes we enjoyed harbourside compete with London’s poshest bar bills. Other than the wind chimes I didn’t resist, all the shops were well out of my price range … and the chimes were probably a foolish splurge. But I suspect there is a less expensive Capri experience, living closer to the locals, that I’d be happy to explore on another visit. Anacapri looked charming and we didn’t get near those imperial villas. The ruins are supposed to be quite impressive. I’ve heard about a cooking school up in the hills. Looks like I have yet another item for my bucket list.
The biggest aquatic attraction here is the Blue Lagoon, a cave with a big, domed roof only accessible by boat, at low tide on calm days, through a gap in the cliffs. Its most distinctive feature is the vibrant, almost neon turquoise that the water inside the cave glows when it’s bright and sunny outside. I went in as a child and it is extraordinary. But if you want to do this, you need to check on tours at the harbour as soon as you arrive, and that would take up a big chunk of any day trip. You can’t book in advance as it’s impossible to predict if conditions will be good enough to get into the cave.
From our slightly less spectacular encounter with the gulf of Naples, our trusty driver Franco then took us back into Capri town. He’d been a wellspring of knowledge about the island and life on it, very much a guide as well as a driver. He dropped us at the highest point of town into which you can get cars and gave us restaurant tips for places the locals would consider top quality. That’s how we ended up at La Capannina, which I wrote about in my last story.
After a very long, very leisurely lunch with some very good wines, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and wandering aimlessly.
I, however, was saved from temptation as I’d already wandered off the main shopping street to explore the back lanes of Capri town. Within a few steps you forget the luxury beach resort and find the peace of quiet, winding paths that have probably been here since the Middle Ages. Venerable stone houses hem you in on either side, with frequent gaps in walls to allow peeks into lovely little gardens. For such a busy place, the quiet was impressive. Except for when I stumbled onto the local primary school as the students noisily tumbled out to their parents.
We’d been warned that the queues for the funicular can back up, so we left Capri town for the harbour below well over an hour before our scheduled boat. There is, naturally, a long esplanade full of shops and bars along the waterside to take advantage of the tourist traffic.
There’s no doubt that Capri is expensive. Lunch here was our priciest meal of the trip. The €20 limoncello spritzes we enjoyed harbourside compete with London’s poshest bar bills. Other than the wind chimes I didn’t resist, all the shops were well out of my price range … and the chimes were probably a foolish splurge. But I suspect there is a less expensive Capri experience, living closer to the locals, that I’d be happy to explore on another visit. Anacapri looked charming and we didn’t get near those imperial villas. The ruins are supposed to be quite impressive. I’ve heard about a cooking school up in the hills. Looks like I have yet another item for my bucket list.
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