May 7, 2010
Yesterday was a slam-packed day. Today we’re going to knock out a “must-do” on the island… and then CHILL. Rule #1, don’t forget to vacation while you’re on vacation.
Today’s adventure is to the Villa Jovis on the very northeast end of the island (to get to Villa Jovis from La Piazzetta: take Via Le Botteghe, followed by Via Fuorlovado, Via Croce and Via Tiberio). You wind through the “country” of Capri – farms, free-range chickens, small, quaint homes… feels almost like a “normal” town… then you reach Emperor Tiberius’ island palace. The palace grounds are mostly ruins… but you can easily visualize how ridiculous it was back in the day. Villa Jovis was built in the first century B.C. and was home to the Roman Emperor, Tiberius. Perched on the cliff’s edge providing privacy and security, this amazing compound stretches over 5,000 square meters. Watchtowers, corridors, secret passageways and of course, another view that rivals anything you’ll ever see.
After Villa Jovis… we headed down to the Marina Grande for a boat trip around the island. Another must-do while you’re on the Isle of Capri… but, do it smart. There are hundreds of people with small boats who think they are cruise ship captains. We almost got swindled into a guy wanting to take us around in his private boat (more like a dingy) for 70+€… we ended up finding a much larger boat for as little as 20€. To really grasp the amazing-ness of the island… make sure you take the tour around. It’s fantastic and you see a lot of stuff that you can’t hike to or even get close to in the little time that you have. You’ll notice I have a slight obsession with photographing boats… this is because: A) I love boats B) I grew up around boats every summer till I was 22 C) all the colors of the stores/boats/landscape photographed extremely well and… D) every time I’m on a boat, I think of this:
The boat tour leaves from Marina Grande and goes clockwise around the island passing by the famous Faraglioni rocks, Punta Carena and the very famous Blue Grotto. You can usually take a smaller rowboat into the Blue Grotto… but the entire time we’ve been on the island, the seas have been too rough. The Blue Grotto is by far the top tourist attraction in Capri… probably even the Amalfi Coast, bummed we couldn’t go in. But we did get to cruise by and take a look in.
The rest of the afternoon… we relaxed and vacationed by the pool.
Another wonderful, last day on the island. SO fortunate to be able to spend so much time at this magnificent place. It really is probably one of the prettiest places I’ve ever seen in my life. Surreal. We’re off to Positano tomorrow for a couple nights. Ciao Ciao!
