The Amalfi Coast and Capri

The very name Capri conjures images of a distant, glamorous place a bit out of reach. So when our ship docked in Naples, just an hour away, we were eagerly anticipating our first look at this famous island. Just off Italy's Amalfi Coast, a beautiful stretch of seacoast including postcard-worthy cities like Positano and Sorrento, Capri rises sharply from the sea, a jagged, rocky challenge of an island, but one offering a beautiful, luxurious setting and breathtaking views of the Amalfi Coast and the Mediterranean Sea.

Capri I

The hour-long hydrofoil ride there cruised at an Italian pace (i.e. slowly), as did the cable car (funicular) to the top of the island. The town of Capri was a dense collection of winding streets with an unmistakable charm, reflecting the natural beauty of its surroundings as well as the glamour that has long been a part of the island's image, ever since it became a hideaway for the Roman Emperor Tiberius thousands of years ago. We didn't have time to see Capri's most famous tourist attraction, the blue grotto, but we did have some fantastic photo opportunities from the nearby Augustus Gardens, which offered a great view of the famous Faraglioni rocks below, and we strolled by Capri's many extremely expensive fashion boutiques on the way back.

Capri II

Then it was back to reality (sort of) as our boat left for Sorrento. Sorrento is perched atop dramatic cliffs, with a nearly straight drop down from the many buildings built right along the land's edge. We stopped here for lunch and some shopping, then boarded a bus to Pompeii. The streets along the Amalfi Coast linking Sorrento and Pompeii have a well-deserved reputation as nerve-racking, with a clear view of cliffs and ocean far below from the narrow, winding streets the bus traversed. By day 8 of the trip, the ruins in Pompeii had started to blend together with all the other ruins we had seen in Ephesus and Athens. Still, the ruins were well-preserved by the ash of Mt. Vesuvius, and especially striking were the remains of people caught in the eruption, their final poses of what must have been mortal terror still visible nearly 2,000 years later.

Capri III