Day 34 – May 19 Thursday

Another late start, 6am up, brekkie at 7am & bus by 7.40am to be at the Sorrento wharf by 8am to meet our local guide Maria for the ferry to the Isle of Capri.  The ferry was two deck, motor vehicles lower deck, passengers above in an enclosed seating area.  The big twin jet propulsion boat took around 20 minutes to get to Capri, the island has amazingly high limestone cliffs with houses & villas built everywhere.  We left the port area straight away & caught the funicular up to the higher town, the wealthier part of the island. We walked through the shopping centre & out past some expensive hotels, one converted from a former Roman time hospital.   We ended up on the other side of the island at the Krupp Gardens, a nicely maintained oasis in the midst of opulence.  The cliff top lookouts in the garden give fantastic views in both directions, as well as a great view of the old Roman port & a few remnant Roman battlements.  After a nice walk around the gardens we had a slow wander back to the Capri Town square, than caught a minibus up to the heights of Anacapri.

This road to Anacapri has 1,000 foot drops from the road over the cliff edge, particularly at a section the locals call “mama mia”  – it is really a long, long way straight down.  It was midday by the time we got to Anacapri so we had lunch with our group at a nice little restaurant before continuing on to see Villa San Michelle. This villa was built on the remains of an ancient Roman villa & some of the original Roman ruins are incorporated in the villa near the edge of the cliff.  The villa is now a small museum capturing a snippet in time from when the villa was first built & lived in.  The villa has pieces of Roman remnants scattered all around it & a nice sub-tropical garden that is well maintained.  The views from the path at the edge of the garden are spectacular, looking directly down over the town & port of Capri from over 1,000 feet in height, even the eagles where flying well below us.  Mount Vesuvius looked brooding & menacing in the distance, overshadowing Naples.  A slow wander back through the gardens & back to the Anacapri square where we took the bus all the way to the wharf for our ferry back to Sorrento.  We stopped at a factory that practises “intarsio” or marquetry wood inlaying for a description on how it is done, from the raw material through to the finished product.  We then had a look through the showroom, they have a lot of really beautiful work.

Dinner was at another local restaurant established in 1868, the Ristorante O’Parrucchiano & still with the same family.  The gardens are very good, the entranceway has lots of lemon trees covered in large fruit, the flowers in the garden beds are all beautiful & the setting must hold around 500 guests, easily.  Dinner was pretty good, the waiters very friendly & as night fell, lights came on & transformed the scene again – very pretty.  The way out had fairy lights strung through green leaves & hanging lemons from the archways overhead, it was a stunning display of garden lighting.  We have made some good friends on this trip too.  We all had another great night.