I’m writing this post from
my sea view balcony in the Amalfi Coast—but more on this week next time. I
spent last week in Capri, hiking all over the island and participating
(minimally) in a design workshop with Italian architecture graduate
students. The combination of
spontaneous, unexpected adventures and the island’s captivating scenery, not to
mention lots of ah-mazinggg food, all added up to it becoming my best week
abroad…or ever.
While the rest of our
class headed to northern Italy for a field trip, I boarded a train and
hydrofoil boat to Capri with my good friend and classmate, fellow ‘adventure
extraordinaire’, Eric, and our professor, Romolo. We arrived on the island in time to drop our bags at our
fancy-shmancy hotel and grab drinks with Romolo before lunch with the other workshop
professors. After pizza and
complementary lemoncello, Romolo led us on our first hike of the week to see
the Arco Naturale, a naturally formed arch, the Grotto Matremania, a large cave
that was used around the time of Christ by a religious cult that primarily
worshipped Mother Earth, and views to the Faraglione, large rock formations
just off the island’s coast.
We kicked off each day
with a big breakfast at the hotel before setting off to hike or meet with the
design workshop crew. On the first day of the workshop, Romolo led the whole
group to Villa Jovis, the ruins of a villa built on top of one of the tallest
peaks of Capri where the emperor Tiberius ran the entire Roman Empire from for
much of his rule. Using a
lighthouse with a large fire and reflective panels, Tiberius could send messages
from the Villa with a system of signals similar to Morse Code along a chain of
lighthouses all the way up the Italian coast faster than any mode of
transportation could travel at the time.
In the evening, Eric and I
set out to find a bottle of wine and some snacks and ended up following signs
to a Bellevedere (translation:
beautiful view), landing ourselves at a panoramic overlook to Capri at
dusk. The minute I turned the
corner to the (literally) breathtaking view was the moment I fell in love with the island. I celebrated my new-founded love
for Capri with dinner at Michelangelo’s—a restaurant that we had all to ourselves where we befriended the
entertaining host/waiter, Edvino, and the jolly chef, “Papa!”.
The off-season in Capri is
actually ‘off’ for all but a
few tourists, and beyond the main streets in the town center we didn’t see
anyone. Eric and I didn’t mind that the shops weren’t open for us, and the lack
of tourists made the island that much more magical because it felt like we had
the entire island to ourselves.
Once Romolo headed back to Rome, Eric and I were free to explore tiny
passageways and deserted trails that we stumbled upon without any
hesitation…there was no one on the island to catch us!
Our explorations led us up
and down cliffs where we relied on sketchy rope ladders to keep us from falling
into the sea below, and to an abandoned lighthouse that we reached by pushing
through waist-high thorn bushes, and to up-close views of the Villa Lysis, and
Casa Malaparte, and the Faraglione...just when we thought we had seen it all,
there was more to see.
On Thursday morning, Eric
and I set off for what we would eventually title ‘The Mother of All Hikes”: an
8.5 hour hike on which we walked around more than half of the island’s circumference
and climbed over 1900 feet in elevation.
(Check out his blog for
pictures that put mine to shame). The trek began at Marina Grande, the main
port, from where we climbed hundreds of steps to Anacapri, the upper town of the island and home to Villa San
Michele, the museum of Axel Munthe—a doctor/architect/archeologist who, long
story short, not only saved the ancient ruins of Capri but also saved the
island from multiple epidemics. We
grabbed lunch-to-go at a market in the town and stopped by ruins of Villa
Damecuta—an Augustan fort/villa—on our way to the the Sentiero dei Fortini, a
trail which winded us along cliffs, past ruins of Medieval forts, down to
grottos, and between terraced farms and lemon groves. Three hours later, we began our steep climb up to a trail
along the very edge of the tallest ridge of Capri. With a sheer drop down to
the ocean on one side and a view over Anacapri on the other, the trail
eventually led us to the highest peak on the island. Out of breath and almost out of water and daylight (but
totally amped from our mega-hike feat), we headed down another trail, switching
back and forth through dense woods and ending back in town near our hotel.
Woah!
That night, Eric and I
returned to Michelangelo’s
where we found ourselves at a special dinner event celebrating international
Women’s Day. The evening consisted
of a delicious 4 course meal (cooked by “Papa!”) with a side of a suave Italian man singing along
to pre-recorded music while pretending to play the keyboard, flashy club
lights, a disco ball, and a restaurant full of old ladies (and me and Eric) dancing with
wine-filled bellies and tambourines.
All of our dinners were as
satisfying as our island adventures and included some form of fresh seafood:
penne with just-caught salmon, a big bowl of mussels and clams, seafood pasta,
fried calamari and octopus…it all added up to undeniably the best food I’ve had
in Italy so far. (Don’t worry, Ma, your cooking is still #1).
With Capri still dominating most of my brain, I’ve decided it’s experiences like these that studying abroad is
all about...you know, like, spontaneous dance parties with old ladies shakin’
it to remixes of Mambo #5 after hours of hiking across the most beautiful
island on the planet.
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| Arco Naturale |
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| Faraglione |
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| View from Villa Jovis over Capri |
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| Cloister of the Certosa |
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| Lemons! |
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| A stumbled-upon beach with volcanic rocks |
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| Columns at Villa Lysis |
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| Sunset behind Capri |
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| More beautiful views from our hikes |
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| Bird I met at Marina Piccola |
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| Oh that? That's just a rope we used to repel down cliffs... |
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| Marina Grande, the main port of the island |
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| Medieval (?) tower at Villa Damecuta |
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| Cliffs on the Sentiero dei Fortini |
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| Our hike along the top of the ridge (where the tree line begins) |
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| View from the top of the island |
