Normally, I hate the idea of a tour group. We saw them everywhere in Europe, groups of people clumped together (yet somehow taking up whole streets), all wearing the same color shirt, following a chirpy person holding a giant umbrella, or large walking stick, or klieg light.
But, we really wanted to go to Capri! We were running out of time in Positano, and Capri was RIGHT THERE, and we couldn't just leave the Amalfi Coast without heading over that way.
There are several little stands down by the water in Positano, staffed by people wanting to jam you into a boat with 50 of your closest friends and then throw you off onto a crowded dock.
We talked with all of the tour operators going from Positano to Capri, and eventually settled on a small boat, with tours kept under 15 people. (I think the tour was operated by Gennaro e Salvatore - there's actually a picture of a very similar boat to the one we were on if you follow that link.) We made reservations for later in the week.
And it was GREAT. Seriously one of the best days we had on our honeymoon. We relaxed on the deck of a smallish boat, or possibly ship (yeah, not really nautical over here) and headed out to Capri with 6 other people - two British couples and a mother/daughter duo from Queensland.
Our tour guide was named Frank. He told us that part of the secret of Italian cooking is to put a laurel leaf in everything, and it wasn't until we got to Santorini that we found out that laurel = bay leaf. Dur.
He was a wonderful tour guide. First we went through Capri town, tromping through gardens and oohing and aahing at beautiful buildings.
It seemed like there were actually more flowers (especially bougainvillea) in Capri than there were in Positano.
We didn't have too much time to spend in Capri town - but that was fine, as it was ridiculously crowded with giant tour groups. I would definitely like to go back there and stay for a couple of nights, since it seemed like the island was sagging under the weight of all the day-trippers - it would be really nice to see the island at night.
We did go on a lovely hike, though. Capri changes from town to rugged landscape with astonishing rapidity.
These fingers are really interesting - on the furthest one out (far left in this photo) lives a species of lizard found nowhere else. Plus, you can take a boat through them, which we got to do!
We had a little time on our own, which Husbear and I used to hunt down and purchase Capri's famed basil liqueur, in a shop that had signs in Italian, English, German, and Japanese. Good liqueur, though.
Since the tour was to Capri, we had to go to the blue grotto, right? And we did.
And we took a really crappy picture of it. If you were looking at this picture and thinking, "Hey, now I don't need to go to Capri, because I've already seen the blue grotto in all its majesty," well, you're wrong, though thank you! True, you do pay an extra ten bucks to get in a little rowboat, and you have to lay down in the boat to go through the small hole that serves as the entrance to the grotto, but oh my god, was it completely amazing. I went into a cave in Israel that was similar, but they had a constructed walkway with a railing and everything. Somehow, in this grotto, even though you were surrounded by other rowboats full of people, it felt completely peaceful, and like it had always been like this. And one of the girls we were with got to jump in (!) where she turned ghostly blue.
It was great.
After the blue grotto, we climbed back in the boat and headed over to the less famous, less touristed green grotto. (I don't think there's a red grotto, or chartreuse, but if there was I would totally go.)
There's a cave-beach in there that you can swim to. We all stripped down to our bathing suits and jumped in the water. I was probably thirty feet or so (?) from the boat, when I felt something brush against my hand - I looked down and saw a little floaty pillowy tentacly thing, and then my hand started burning. Lots.
I looked over to where the other people were swimming while also simultaneously treading water and trying to grow eyes on every side of my head, and noticed they were all heading past me to the boat rather quickly, all of a sudden. Cries of "jellyfish! Oh crapcrap ouch whatthehell!" may have been heard, and there could have been some frantic splashing.
I don't think I've ever swum a creepier thirty feet, desperately not thinking about where the jellyfish were, if they were moving fast, how many of them there were, and whether they were between me and the boat. Luckily, I didn't get stung again - but once on my hand was enough. Husbear got a good sting all the way across both of his shins.
The boat was prepared for a problem like this, meaning that at least we didn't have to pee on ourselves to stop the stinging pain (though now I hear that may not even work!). They had a bottle of ammonia - yay! We sprayed ourselves liberally and settled in for the ride back to Positano, where I couldn't get my hand wet for a few days without that weird stinging sensation returning. Husbear toughed through, that psycho.
Jellyfish notwithstanding, I totally want to go back to Capri. I feel like I was only there barely long enough to get a little taste of why people flock to the beautiful island.
girlie
