T’was on the Isle of Capri

We went to Capri today having now located the right part of the port for the hydrofoils (we saw the Sorrento ferry we should have caught yesterday).  The crossing was a little choppy and was not helped when we arrived at the other end by the fact that the funicular railway up to the town was closed and we had to take a rather stuffy bus.

But after that, we had a simply glorious day.  The weather was wonderful, about 16C and sunny.  First we walked over to see the natural arch.

There were many, many steps.  We had heard it was possible to go all the way down to the bottom to see a Roman matrimonial cave (whatever that is) but as that looked to be several hundred more steps, we decided against it and went back to the town where we had a super lunch at a restaurant with views to die for.  This was the first semi-formal meal we have had in Italy – fresh buffalo mozzarella two ways with ham to start.  Then I had seafood pasta and R had gnocchi capresi.

After lunch we went to the gardens of Augustus.  At the top there is a terrace with a bench overlooking the cliffs and the bay of Naples.  This bench must have the best view in Europe, if not the world, and you would think that there would be a queue of people waiting to sit on it and stare out over the wine dark sea.  But all people were really interested in doing was queuing up to pet the enormous cat which had ownership of the bench.  He was tolerating his fan club sitting next to him one by one – R even got to be one of them.

Then rather than going on the crowded bus again, we walked all the way back down the hill to the port – about another 200 stairs.  We’ve actually averaged over 20,000 steps a day this week.