Honeymoon Day 7: Capri

When I heard that the island of Capri was where the Caprese salad was invented, I knew we had to go.  Capri is approximately 30 minutes by boat from Sorrento and the ferries are frequent from morning to early evening.  We made our way to the port after breakfast and bought our round trip tickets there for the next ferry to Capri.  Once we arrived at the main marina for Capri, we ignored the cabbies who were offering us rides and found the ticket office for funicular.  As an engineer, the funicular was a must see for me.  The funicular is two cars that counterbalance to use a minimal amount of energy to get people from the marina up to the main square or the Piazzetta in Capri.  At the ticket office we again bought day passes which we were able to use for the funicular plus to hop on and off the buses on the island.  Capri is only four square miles and the buses were fairly simple to figure out. 

View while coming into Marina Grande

Looking out from the Piazzetta in Capri

I had read some recommendations on how to spend the day in Capri and I decided that right away that we would get on the bus to go up to Anacapri.  Anacapri is a village about a half mile straight up the mountain, so the bus was definitely the way to go.  However the bus ride was even more terrifying then the one we experienced the day before.  The bus climbed straight up with almost no barrier and a lot of hair pin turns.  This bus was crowded so we weren't able to get any pictures to show how steep the drop was but I'm not sure I could convince the husband to do that again if we went back.

We explored the streets of Anacapri, popping into the shops and enjoying the scenery.  I had read that Anacapri was the best place to catch the bus to the Blue Grotto we wandered around until we find the bus station for Anacapri.  We also daydreamed about someday owning a place in Anacapri with a view of the sea.

Dream house

 I had been looking forward to taking a boat ride to the Blue Grotto but we soon learned that if the wind is up they will shut it down since the entrance to the grotto is so low.  Even though the weather was beautiful, it was also breezy so we unfortunately missed seeing the famous grotto.  There is also a chair lift that you can hop on in Anacapri and ride up the mountain, I was told if I wanted to go I'd be going alone so I passed.
 

Path we followed through Anacapri

After finishing our stroll through Anacapri we took the bus back down the mountain to Capri and decided it was time for lunch.  We found a beautiful restaurant overlooking the water and of course started with Caprese salad!  Since we were on an island I knew I wanted seafood so I ordered the daily special which was fresh sea bass.  It was expensive but worth every penny.

View from our lunch table

Caprese salad

Sea bass

Once we finished lunch we explored the town of Capri.  It's not that big and many of the stores were closed for the season but they were well out of our price range anyways.  There is no question that Capri caters to the wealthy.  Even though we were stuffed from lunch we decided to stop at a different restaurant and try the caprese torte cake which I was not impressed by.

Caprese torte

Since it was still early afternoon so we decided to take one more trip.  We headed back to the little bus station and got on the one headed to Marina Piccola.  The main attraction I had read about that part of the island is it has the best view of the Faraglioni which is a famous rock stack.  I wasn't sure what else to expect when we got there and we quickly discovered it was just a few restaurants, a church and the beach.  We decided to enjoy the weather and the view and sat outside at a small restaurant.  We weren't starving but I wasn't going to pass up a chance for another Caprese salad.  Our day in Capri was some of the best weather we had on the trip.  We had made a snap decision that morning to not bring jackets or heavy sweaters and we were glad we didn't.

Faraglioni

Caprese salad #2

It was barely 70 but people were sunbathing

We realized if we wanted to catch the next ferry out of Capri we needed to get moving, so we caught the next bus back to Capri and then took the funicular down to the port.  We caught the ferry and headed back to Sorrento enjoying the view of the sunset on the ride.

View out the front of the furnicular on the ride down

Sunset from the ferry