Italy, Part 7: Bob Visits Capri and Sorrento

I got up early the next morning — Oct. 31 — and headed to the pickup point. A small bus came that subsequently took us to a small street in town, where we were met by a guide. We were taken to an elevator in a nondescript building that could hold at least 25 people, and in what seemed like a moment, we wooshed down 80 meters (260 feet) down to water level. For some reason, the boat was delayed about an hour, but then I boarded the small boat with 10 other people.

Here are some pictures, since Lisa says I didn’t describe it enough. (Pictures are worth a thousand words. Each.)

This is how far the elevator went, through sold rock 260 feet from Sorrento town to the marina below

The Sorrento Marina

The cliff

A look back at Sorrento from the boat

Capri

We spent the next hour traveling along the coast and out to the island of Capri, where we began a clockwise tour of the island.

First view of Capri

We briefly stopped at the Green Grotto and made our way to the famous Faraglioni of Capri. The sea was fairly choppy and I was already pretty surprised that the boat captain got us as close as he did to the Green Grotto, as we bounced around literally feet from the rocks.

The Green Grotto – I thought he was going to crash the boat

Now, we were heading directly toward the Faraglione di Mezzo, and as I saw the arch approaching, I was wondering how close he would get us to it. He didn’t even hesitate and as we bounced from side to side, he skillfully maneuvered the rocking boat through the arch, at times no more than six feet from the rocks. Granted, this wouldn’t have been a problem in calm seas, but the sea wasn’t calm this day and I was quite surprised he did it. There’s no way this would have been allowed in the US. The boat captain did make a joke (after he was successfully through) that the arch we just went through had been smaller in the spring before several boats bounced off the sides and made it wider. Ha!

We continued our tour around the island and got to the famous Blue Grotto. Normally, the boat would stop and allow the tourists an opportunity to take one of the local guided rowboats through the grotto. But that wasn’t happening today as it was far too rough.

The Blue Grotto

It was then on to dock at the marina in Capri, where we had 4 hours of free time. I hadn’t done any research on what there was on Capri itself, and honestly, I was a bit tired of walking and doing tourist things after 3 days in Rome and another in Pompeii. Nonetheless, I took the funicular up to the main tourist town. The view from the top was breathtaking.

Funicolare

View from the top

Capri itself, though picturesque, was a typical tourist town, built on a hillside. It had the usual tourist shops, but many were closed for the season, some with people inside boxing up the merchandise (Oct. 31 marks the last day of high season). I walked around for two hours, had some street food for lunch and got half a gallon of red Italian orange juice to take back with me. I decided to walk down the hill to the dock area, which turned out to be longer than I wanted to do, so I relaxed with a beer at a local restaurant. During the return boat ride, some of the other tourists talked about going to the top of the peak on the island, which I regretted not doing.

By pickup time, the weather had started to turn. The wind was up, the temperature was down, the water was quite choppy, and I became wet from wind spray during the chilly trip back. I was wishing for a hot tub by the time I got back to my apartment.

Back in Sorrento … Halloween

Soon though, I was back on the street when I saw that local kids were out in full force in costume on trick-or-treating at the local merchants. I hadn’t expected them to celebrate Halloween in Italy!

Lock of Love

The next morning,  I woke up to rain. My original plan was to take a tour of the Amalfi coast, but the low clouds and heavy rain justified my decision to stay in. There was enough of a lull in the rain to allow me to go for a run, and I found a fence overlooking the bay that had a few Locks of Love locks attached. I had a padlock with me, but didn’t have a Sharpie to write Lisa and my initials. I made it my mission for the day to find one, not an easy task in a tourist town. I was eventually successful, but by then it was dark, so I had to wait until the next day to put it in place.

I woke up the next morning to find it raining too hard to run. I had to check out of my lodging, so all I was hoping for was for the rain to let up enough to allow me to walk the half mile to the fence and back without getting completely soaked. Finally, as I was at breakfast around 9 AM, I got that opportunity. I rushed to the fence, put the lock (inscribed RG + LH) in place, took some pictures to share with Lisa, and made it back to pick up my suitcase before it started raining hard again.

I got on the train, standing room only, for the 75-minute trip back to Naples to meet up with Lisa and Lexie for our flight to Athens the next day.