I'm back! I am humbled and embarrassed that I have taken so long to get back to my blog and finish out my trip to Italy. I am truly humbled because enough of you are reading this that you have started to harass me to get it done. Thanks for reading it!
When we got back, as I reported before, I ended up with COVID which took a bit to get over. Even after the sickness went away, I felt like I needed to sleep 10 hours a night for some reason and then on top of that I've actually been on four adventures since I left you last. LOL I was trying to decide if I should start there and go backwards as these latest adventures are still fresh in my mind....or start from Italy and finish what I started. Squirrel! I am excited to say though, that several of my friends are going to Italy fairly soon and want more details. So here we go with Day 10 and our trip to Capri.
First of all, make sure you put the right emPHAsis on the right syLLable before you go, so you don't walk around talking about a pair of short pants in America. They do not say it. CApree...they say CaPREE. Listen to one of those google pronunciation things before you go so you look smart. Or at least don't look dumb.
There are many things to do on this little island and it's just off the coast so it's very tempting. My actual bucket list was to lie on the beach and see the Blue Grotto. I had other ideas as well but what you will discover in my next blog when I describe the trip to the Blue Grotto is that you do not have time for all of that unless you stay the night or have your own personal transportation back, just not enough time in one day with the ferry schedule.
We started the morning off by taking the ferry but now we are a little more aggressive and less likely to have our feelings hurt when people shove us aside. The Positano ferry stop is pretty civilized. We made the short journey, maybe 40 minutes?, and when we arrived we decided to do the Blue Grotto first. And lucky for you, the tickets to the grotta azzurra cave are right there on the dock, so we literally jumped off one boat and jumped on another.
I think the tickets for the boat were $25 euros each, and they give you no instruction or information, just point to a line of open-bowed boats. So we just jumped on one and off we went! Now I will tell you it was about 3.5+ hours when we finally returned, so read about that next, if you want to do the Blue Grotto and just know it will take a significant portion of your day.
But about the beautiful Isle of Capri! Once we got back from the Blue Grotto, we were incredibly thirsty, hungry, desperate for a bathroom and a little tiny bit cranky and sunburned.
We probably should have walked further from the docks, but we were very hungry, so we jumped into the first restaurant we saw. It was very busy and the the view was quite lovely, perhaps a little spendy, but then we found out the entire island is. The food was fantastic. Oh, I've probably said that before. 100x. Sorry, but it bears repeating. The name of the restaurant was Lo Smeraldo.
Check how they tell you about the fresh specials from the sea, yea, that is not a chalkboard. What was really fun is we didn't even recognize some of these things they suggested we eat. I think I mentioned before that Vicki's getting pretty tired of digging through all of her food and cracking and pulling and fighting little bits of food out, so she asked if she could simply have fish-and-chips. We had seen some fried food go by and even said it slow and made sure he understood. He smiled and nodded. I had the Chicken Milanese and unfortunately, that is what we thought was fried fish. Check out what her plate looked like. Tee hee. She was a good sport, but a little disappointed that yet again, she had to peel fish and crack shells. I couldn't stop laughing when I looked at her face trying to bravely tackle yet another meal.
After lunch, we wandered around the beautiful isle and admired the fresh fruits and the architecture and the people. Oh and the lemons! Again, they are just huge and are used for decorations everywhere...even as table centerpieces. I went one direction because my check list item was to lay on the beach and the ladies went the other to walk along the marina. The beach, I discover, is more than a little rocky and uncomfortable...even to walk on. I was surprised to see how many people still lie on it. I think I will pass on that and call that list item checked! We met up again and had a cocktail as it was already nearly time for our ferry. We still haven't learned by now that lining up was a silly endeavor and again we tried to follow the rules and do as instructed and were a little befuddled. The dock hands told us to go all the way to the end to dock 13 (way way way down the hot pier) only to find out that it always goes out of number 1. Thank you. There were a lot of very confused and hot tourists who were again frustrated and puzzled when the locals walked around our line and jumped on the boat ahead of us. after essentially shoving us aside and creating chaos. We we will get this one day...but again, there were drinks on board and regular fun fiesta was had.
We were so glad we went, but we wish we had understood that there is much to see and if you do the blue grotto, you will need to stay longer than that one day. Regardless, we didn't regret it for a minute!
Read my next blog as I detail and show pictures of the Blue Grotto....
Gracie!
Comments