isle of sand and fog

The morning we had to leave the South, it had become sunny outside, so we decided to go to Capri on our way to Florence. I was nervous about all the connections we would have to make that day in order to get to Florence in time to check in that night, but we thought it was worth it. We checked our bags at our B&B and walked down to the ferry landing at 8. After trying to get on a boat to Naples (it just seemed like the direction everyone was heading in) we found the right landing and boarded our little boat to the island. I took a picture of this man fishing in the harbor because he was just so Driftwood.

We arrived on the island, which I thought looked like a kind of older, Italian version of Catalina, and found the boats for the Grotta Azzurra... the Blue Grotto. We boarded a boat with a group of high schoolers from a Swiss boarding school for children of diplomats, and a Japanese tour group, and rode around to the other side of the island. Then we climbed off the boat into little canoes in groups of four or five, and a rower took us into the grotto.

We were fortunate that the grotto was even open that day, because it's closed often due to high tides or choppy waves. This actually was a high tide day, though apparently not too high for the rowers to work. We sat on the floor of the canoe, and as we approached the cave entrance, the rower told us to lie down. I couldn't really tell from the larger boat just how small the entrance was, and I had a sudden vision of not being able to get my head down enough and being decapitated. Or worse, just de-faced. I was in the far back and lying down basically meant just leaning back against the end of the canoe, not really getting below head level that much. It was such a weird feeling going through so quickly with the roof of the opening an inch or two from my face, but we got through with no defacements. (I had a little rougher time on the way out.)

Rowing around inside the grotto was really kind of amazing. The limestone on the sea floor reflects sunlight as a brilliant, almost unearthly blue color. The rower sang O Sole Mio and another Italian song that I didn't recognize, and the acoustics made it beautiful and haunting. Apparently after 4:00 in the afternoon, the rowers stop working and you can just go into the grotto and swim. It would be freezing to do it in February but swimming there in the summer is going on my list of Things To Do Before I Die. This is the video Brie took in the grotto, courtesy of my wonderful and talented brother, who sized it down for us. (Ryan, I will buy you a gelato. And by "you" I mean "me".)



On the way out, we had to lie down again, and there must have been a chain attached to the cave wall to let the rowers pull the canoes through, because suddenly I felt a really heavy chain being dragged quickly across my face. It startled me more than it hurt me (I was still worried about losing my nose) but I did have a red welty streak across my forehead and cheek for the rest of the day.

Back on the island, we found a little beach, and saw the sun, the for-real sun, for what seemed like the first time since I got here. It was still pretty chilly so we refrained from stripping down and running around yelling with giddiness. Brie skipped some rocks. I tried to skip some rocks. I think I made one skip once. After a while I started to worry we would miss our bus to Anacapri, one of the two little towns on the island, so I walked up the hill to check. Our bus was just pulling up, so I yelled for Brie and Yvette to run to where I was, and also to bring the coat and camera and bag that I had left on the beach. They thought this was deliberate on my part but I promise it just worked out that way.

We took the little bus up to near the top of the island, with some great views of the town and the water. Brie and I stood up when an older couple got on the bus, but this was nothing doing for Yvette. She did say she thought it was kind of cute and old world of us.

In Anacapri, which was really cute, we walked around for a while looking for the chairlift to Mt. Solare (recommended by the GB), gave up, and then found it. It was a twelve minute ride up to the top of the mountain, and it was supposed to be the best view of the island. We got on these little individual seats and rode to the top. It was fun even just going up, really quiet. We passed houses and some vineyards, and it got slowly colder as we crept up into the clouds. This is Brienne's Mary Poppins picture from the way down, possibly my favorite photograph so far.

As you may have guessed from that photograph, the views of the island from the top of the mountain were not exactly spectacular. I would say they were more... white. It was actually kind of cool, though. It had a very distant and lonely feel, something I haven't seen much of this trip, and it was kind cool to look down and see nothing but clouds. It reminded me of that scene in Magician's Nephew when Jill looks off the edge of the cliff and sees Eustace falling through the clouds. So I pushed Brie off.

After Brie was spirited away by Aslan, Yvette and I went out to eat at a place called American Bar, where the waiter was wearing a sweatshirt that said "Hot Buttered", which I wish we had gotten a picture of. Yvette makes fun of me, but sometimes I get tired of Italian food. So I got a "hamburgher", ok? So sue me. It was delicious. OK, so it wasn't delicious, but it seemed like it was because it was a freaking hamburger.

After that, we waited at the bus stop to go back down to the marina, which involved me yelling frantically for Yvette, who was shopping, when the bus came, and Yvette yelling "Coming!" and grabbing the little limoncello shot glasses she was buying out of the shopkeeper's hands and racing for the bus, and us boarding the bus at the last second, only to find it was the wrong bus. And then we got on the right bus, and then the right ferry, and then the right train to Florence, which seemed even then like an unbelievably lucky string of events... and that is the end of our time in Southern Italy.