Capri

  

 

 

On a tour centered on Sorrento my wife and I took a one day excursion to the beautiful Isle of Capri but sadly failed to venture to the Blue Grotto.

 

The great excursion from Sorrento must always be that  to Capri, only an hour away by steamer. Starting in the morning at ten when the boat comes in from Naples, a whole day may be spent on the island and the return made at four o’clock; but no one who gives thus but a few hours to Capri can really expect to see anything with pleasure, not even the Blue Grotto.

 

Capri stands but three miles from Capo Campanella, and, as Pliny knew, is about eleven miles in circuit. It is, like the mountain range here to the south of the bay of Naples, of which it is indeed a part, formed wholly of limestone, a great precipitous limestone rock rising abruptly out of the sea, and in many places to a considerable height, especially in the western part, now called Anacapri... 

 

Many are the other ruins upon this island and innumerable are its delights, and especially its glorious views over the sea and the mainland; but the most famous spectacle upon the island, even more famous than the Villa San Michele, is the Blue Grotto, usually visited from the steamer, and therefore as good as not seen at all, for it requires time to enjoy it, and that is just what the steamer will not spare.

 

The best way to visit this beautiful cavern and to avoid disappointment, a disappointment most often due to hurry and a noisy crowd, is to engage a boat at the Marina any tranquil afternoon and to row past the Baths of Tiberius, whose vast ruins may still be seen from the sea, to the Blue Grotto, a journey of something under an hour. The arch by which one enters the cavern is scarcely three feet high, and it is therefore necessary to lie down in the boat as it passes through the low and narrow opening into this cave of marvels. At first nothing remarkable will appear, but little by little, as the eyes accustom themselves to the light, the wonderful colour of the grotto will be seem, and after about a quarter of an hour the whole cave will assume an exquisite sapphire blue, especially if the entrance is blocked by another boat. The grotto is about 160 feet by 100 feet, and at its loftiest some 40 feet. To the right is a platform leading to a broken stairway and tunnel in the rock, which of old led up to the villa of Tiberius above, or so they say.

 

This grotto, which is worth some trouble to see in leisurely fashion, is, however, the only one worth a visit upon the island. It makes a delightful giro, all of a summer morning, to voyage in a small boat quite round Capri; but the Green Grotto, the Red Grotto, and the White Grotto are merely ordinary caves, and require the imagination to fill them with the various colours of which they boast in their names. He is wise who lets them go and gives himself up to the delights of the voyage, which, it is needless to say, can be extended in what direction you will, to Amalfi or to Ischia, with perfect confidence and safety, so the weather be fair and settled; for the sailors of Capri are famous, and know the bay as none other do on the mainland. And what more delicious way of spending the summer days can there be than in such voyages as these between dawn and ten o’clock between afternoon and midnight?  

 

 

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Edward Hutton: Naples and Campania Revisited. London, 1958.Preface. Pp. 200-204.