"Una festa entro una festa" - "A holiday within a holiday"

I can't believe it - we have less than 100 days left in Italy! I won't be doing a countdown like I did before we came here, but the 100 day mark took me by surprise. We've done a lot so far, but there are still some things we want to do. We are going to London in a couple weeks to meet Cam & Jamie, and we'll go to Brussels, Amsterdam and maybe Paris with them. Calendimaggio is in Assisi May 7-9, and Gubbio holds the Racing silk of the Crossbow on the Last Sunday in May, and of course the "Palio Race" in Siena July 2nd.
Other than that, we still haven't been to Milan or taken advantage of the direct flight from Perugia to Barcelona on RyanAir - or EasyJet - one of the super-cheap airlines, anyway.

Enough about what we haven't done..

Last Saturday, we went to the island of Capri for 3 days holiday. My mom left us a book on cheap travel in Italy, and it recommended a hotel called "La Tosca".. we originally contacted them, but they ran out of rooms before we could book. They gave us an apartment next to the hotel for the same price, and it was really comfortable. We had our own little stove, but we didn't end up doing any cooking. Since we only had 3 days, we tried to make the most of our time there.

The weather was pretty grey for the most part, but we did get some sun. When we arrived on the island, we decided to walk to centro rather than take the funicolare. After all, it was only 750 metres according to a sign we saw, and from what I remembered about the map, the funicolare didn't get us much closer to our hotel. I couldn't have been more wrong! The walk was about 2km, but it was straight up hill. If we took the funicolare, we would have been able to walk DOWN to the apartment! Well, the walk didn't hurt us, and we knew for the rest of the trip that the funicolare is definitely the way to go! After we checked in at the hotel and dropped off our bags, we walked to centro to explore and have lunch. Caprese salad was invented here, so I had a couple of those during our stay, and we had some great seafood and pasta, too. All with fantastic views, of course!

Capri is such a neat island - it's full of tourists, even though this is just the beginning of the 'high season', and I imagine it will only get busier in the summer. There are very few vehicles here, because most of the roads are not big enough for full-size vehicles. Businesses, residents and even the fire department use tiny little trucks that look like they are made for driving through hallways, not streets!

After walking for a couple hours, Meryck was ready to head back to the hotel (loaded down with groceries), while Terry & I wanted to see a few more sights before calling it a day. We decided to walk out to Arco Naturale, where we admired the view and had a glass of wine. We thought about taking the scenic route back to the apartment, but since it would be dark soon, we decided to walk that path tomorrow.


The next morning, we woke to a light drizzle, but the clouds promised more rain. So we grabbed our umbrella and started off on our walk. We were all amazed by the views of the sea, and walked almost all the way down to the bar at the base of the faraglioni rocks, then after a couple kilometres and over 1000 steps we arrived back at arco naturale. We headed back to the main drag for a well-deserved and delicious lunch, then took the funicolare to Marina Grande to explore the shops we had rushed past when we landed. We did a little shopping, walked along the beach then Terry & I went on an around-the-island boat tour. Meryck wasn't interested, so he went back to the apartment. From the boat, we got a different view of all the sights we had seen on our walk that morning, plus some things we hadn't seen at all, including a green grotto and a cave full of stalactites that we apparently could have walked to. Unfortunately, the tour was narrated in Italian and maybe some German, so I had to look up the names of all the caves & landmarks that we saw. (Who am I kidding? I would have had to look them up anyway - my memory isn't quite that good!) We also got our first peak at the famous Blue Grotto, or at least all the boats out front waiting to take tourists inside.

The next day we took a bus along a crazy road high over the ocean to Anacapri, then to the Blue Grotto. When we arrived there were at least 50 people in boats outside the entrance to the grotto; I guess they were from a cruise ship. Our guide Gerardo waited outside while one.. two.. three.. four.. five boats full of cruisers came OUT of the cave. It reminded me of a clown pulling scarves out of his nose!!

Once the cruisers were gone, Gerardo took us into the grotto, and we had it all to ourselves. As we floated around Gerardo told us about how the white sand reflects the sunlight and makes the 20 metre deep water glow a bright blue. He told us a bit of the cave's history, and sang to us in Italian.. he was a true tourist attraction! We had been warned about guides being aggressive and wanting ten euro tips per person on top of the charge, but he wasn't pushy at all. I think we lucked out!

Meryck and I hopped on a bus back to Capri, but Terry decided to walk and see if he could get into a church he had noticed on the drive up. We met in Marina Grande at a pub where our waiter tried to help us decide what to do next. The only thing we had not seen yet was Villa Jovis, and he told us we HAD to see it. So we dragged our sorry butts (and sore feet) back to the trail and made our way back up the hill. I'm really glad we decided to do it, because this old home of Tiberius was pretty amazing. You can get a good view of it on google maps, but keep in mind the rock that appears to be around it is actually 334 metres of sheer rock cliffs. (yes, that's about 1000 feet!)

Terry had to rush back to the apartment for a meeting, and Meryck and I took our time walking back. The walk back to the apartment seemed much shorter than the walk up, but we still stopped partway down the hill for cokes (a steal at 4 euros each, or about $6.45)

The next day we took a boat back to the mainland and then a train to Pompei. It was a little eerie, but well worth it. There was no charge for admission, so we didn't mind paying a guide. If you can get 10 people together, you can split the cost, but we found that nobody wanted to join us. Everyone is too worried about getting ripped off by Napolitanos that they didn't notice our distinctive Canadian accents! Oh well, we shared a tour with a couple from San Francisco, so at least we didn't have to pay the full price.

Pompei was a bustling, successful city before it was covered in ash, then lava almost 2000 years ago. So the highlights of the tour were the homes of the rich, a gambling house and the brothel with a graphic 'menu' on the walls. Also, the original "beware of dog" sign which was a mosaic on the floor of an entry way. And of course, there were the bodies. We saw only two, but if we were expecting creepy, we were not disappointed! When they found a 'cavity' during excavation, they would fill it with liquid chalk, then when the ash was removed, the hardened chalk would be in the shape of the body that had been buried there. Of course, part of the skeletons survived, so you could see bones and teeth in places. Quite gruesome, but very interesting. It was a little unnerving to look up and see Mount Vesuvius hovering in the distance over these streets!

Near the end of the tour, the rain came with a vengeance, and we were all soaked through very soon. Our plan had been to stay one night in Napoli and tour the city before heading home, but we decided after much deliberation to just go straight home and skip Napoli this time. We did manage to have a pizza in the birthplace of pizza. (as long as pizza was born in the train station in Napoli!)