Come for the Blue Grotto, Stay for the Blue Grotto: The One Trick Pony Island

Capri was amazing. We got there around 10 am and promptly hiked up from Capri (the main, lower town) to Anacapri (the other town, closer to the Blue Grotto and with a chairlift up to the summit of the mountain, which is supposed to have amazing views of the island). We walked up around 300 or more stairs to get to the town (just the beginning of all the staircases we conquered this trip) and were greeted with another street lined with Limoncello stores! 2There was a Czech tour group wandering down the street so we acted Czech and got tons of free samples (rather than the bunch of free samples we would have gotten if we hadn’t acted Czech). After gorging on sweet liquors and candy (at least as much as you can gorge when you get one piece and move on) we grabbed the chairlift up to the top of the mountain. This was the view going up:

The view from the stairs

From the chairlift

And we took no pictures at the top, so obviously it wasn’t a great day to go. At least we tried. We hiked back down the mountain after, and stopped at a couple of those limoncello stores one more time before starting our walk down to the Blue Grotto. According to the maps we got there was a simple to follow trail going from Anacapri to the Grotto. Our maps lied. The streets in Anacapri are the most confusing things ever (they number the intersections as well as the alleyways, but the map did not) so we got lost in that maze for a bit. Finally we escaped on to the path to the Grotto, which about halfway through was washed out. We kept going anyway, despite there being no clear trail, and then finally made it to the grotto after about an hour.

View on the way down the mountain

We grabbed a boat in and ducked as we went in to the tiny opening (about 10 inches of clearance?) and were greeted with this amazing blue light

The light gets in to the grotto because, while there are rocks covering the opening, there are no rocks in the water itself. Sunlight streams right in through the water and diffuses in to that incredible blue. So worth the 12.50€. We wandered around the area a bit and found another rocky beach just next door. The water was freezing again, but it felt great. I brought my goggles this time too, so I looked underwater and saw this enormous dropoff about five feet from the shore. Slightly terrifying. I didn’t know I was afraid of deep water until then. It was weird. But incredibly deep! I think I was mostly afraid of the fact that I had NO IDEA what was down at the bottom, and so got all panicky about deadly things. After marveling at the depth, Deanna and I decided to do a bit of cliff jumping, and so we did. After going canyoning two weeks before I thought it would be no big deal, but I totally froze at the edge for like five minutes, until I got Deanna and the kids we met from Chicago to count me down. I got trained pretty well by Graziano (our canyoning guide) to go on “1”, so it worked. Here, look:

We hung out on the beach a bit longer then made our way back to Capri to grab the next ferry back to Sorrento. We got there a little early (had around 45 minutes to kill) so we browsed the tourist shops and just sat by the water, resting our exhausted feet/bodies. And reflecting on our amazing trip in to the Grotto. It was amazing. Like, incredible. I hope you all understand just how amazing I thought it was. I think it should be obvious, it is one of my favorite places in the world. Along with everywhere else I went this semester. Except Naples.

When we got back to Sorrento we got to climb another 100 stairs from the port up to the town itself, and then got some groceries, got on the bus and went HOME. Watched the Social Network, such a great movie. Slept. Next post, Amalfi.