Capri Island

Famous and crowded Capri Island in the middle of high season wasn’t something what we were dreaming about. Visiting in January was a great idea and Naples is a perfect base to explore surrounding areas.

We’re lucky, because Naples in January is not always sunny and nice- literally we hit the gap between rainy days there. During 2,5 days of our trip we had amazing weather- sunny and pleasant, it was warm enough to wear just light sweater. If the weather is gloomy it’s not worth to waste time to go to the Capri Island – it’s look the best when the sun is out.

We got to the island by ferry from Naples and unfortunately it wasn’t a cheap pleasure- we paid 45 euro per person. We decided for one of the fastest boats which was 50min. When we arrived to the Island we went straight to ticket office, unfortunately funicular was closed due to low season. We could take bus instead and we did, every trip costs 2 euro per person.

From Marina Grande port we went by bus to Capri town and the bus ride on windy roads is a fun itself. We started our walk on Piazza Umberto I and we lost ourselves in small beautiful streets. We visited two viewpoints- Belveder of Punta Connone and Belvedere Tragara. If you have more time you can choose one of the trekking trails in Capri, unfortunately we didn’t have enough time.

When we came back to the Capri town we took a bus to next town- Anacapri. There we planned short trekking to a view point; we just wanted to have a bite before w e hit the road. It was Sunday, low season and Anacapri was like a ghost town, it wasn’t easy to find anything serving food this time anything open actually! We found small pizzeria Al Buco. We ordered two classic pizzas- Capriciosa and Salame, two bottles of Nasturo Azzuro and we went to the nearby square to eat. Pizza in Italy is a fast food; you don’t have to eat it in the restaurant. That is how we ate one of the best pizza during that trip – with cold beer it was yummy.

After delicious meal we were prepared for trekking, Monte Solaro was our goal. In the high season you can take funicular to go up, but it was closed. We didn’t have much time, because we had booked ferry back to Napoli already and we found a lot of different informations how long does it take. Some local guy told us that is not so bad, 40 minutes to go up should be enough and he was right, we needed only 30 minutes. Views from there are amazing! Even Aneta, who doesn’t like mountain walking admit that it was worth to trek and to sweat a bit.

After we went down we took a bus to Capri where we ordered a glass of prosseco – one of the most expensive ever and we went back to port to take our ferry.

Capri Island is a beautiful place and it is worth to get lost over there, but it is hard to imagine how that entire tourist in how season can fit to that small island! Capri authorities can barely manage that amount of people and keep asking about limiting numbers of ferries going there every day in a high season so far without success.

Trip to Naples and the Capri island can be combined with Rome. There is a fast train between the cities and it takes only an hour and twenty minutes to get there, compared to one hour longer by car! If you are interested in this option, here you can read more about visiting the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, and here we have written about less known district of Rome – Trastevere.