We try again - see the Blue Grotto
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2011
1
5
12
Trip End
Oct 20, 2011
Capri, Campania, Italy
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Now we had another day to kill in Sorrento. Since we had by now ambled up and down virtually every street and lane in the town there really remained only two things undone. One was the Amalfi coast, the other was the Blue Grotto.
The Amalfi trail held little appeal. I mean, one can only stand so many vertical surfaces and hairpin turns and we had seen enough of those, by accident or otherwise. So the Blue Grotto it was, only this time we would organize it ourselves and take the boat ride completely around the island. It was a good choice.
As we set out for the harbor again Malcolm had an attack of panic because he could not find his hat. He was soon able to relax, however, when he found it in his left hand.
Back on Capri again, with no sign of Luigi – perhaps the organization had off'ed him – we signed aboard a sturdy little skiff for the trip in a clockwise fashion around the island. It was terrific.
Capri Island covers about 4 square miles and soars straight up to almost 2000 feet. It is a great slab of limestone, maybe 4 miles long, that had been rotated 90° by some extraordinary force of nature millennia ago. Due to its mineral composition it is riddled with caves, caverns, grottos and remarkable stone formations. One stone arch looked like a gigantic elephant away up high, another at sea level allowed small boats like ours to sail right through, which was novel. Our boatman was able to get most of his boat right inside the Green and Yellow Grottos. It was a little unnerving to look up and see massive boulders in the ceiling of the caves that might come crashing down at any minute. Sprinkled along the coastline, but generally very high up, were some beautiful not to say immodest homes, one perched directly atop the mouth of a great cavern.
The star of the show, however, was the Blue Grotto. The way it worked was these tour boats would arrive at the entrance to the grotto, above which had been built a hotel and a restaurant. The entrance to the grotto was less than 3 feet high and perhaps four feet wide. Men in tiny row boats would pull up alongside the tour boat and would embark 3 passengers, with a cash payment of €25 each. You were arranged in a prone fashion on the floor of the row boat and then taken over to a bigger boat where three - I want to say “hoods”- would take their €12.50 cut from the boatman. It was very “organized” and lucrative since there might be one hundred or more people at any given time waiting to part with their cash. And this goes on all day.
The boatman would then row over to the opening of the grotto and, commanding his passengers to lie down flat, would pull his boat through and into the grotto by means of a chain that had been strung for that purpose. Once in the grotto you would be allowed to sort of sit up so you might admire the view.
The sunlight coming in through the small entrance is filtered and reflected in a beautiful deep blue colour. Looking toward the entrance you saw blue, looking away you saw black. There might be seven or eight boats in the cavern at one time. The boatmen would sing “Volare” or some such. Passengers would “ooh” and “aah.” Flashbulbs would fire. And then the ride was over. Our boatman made it clear that you were not getting off his vessel until you had forked over a €5 tip.
With the return trip to Capri by ferry boat, plus the ride around the island, plus the grotto fee and forced tip the whole adventure cost about CDN $125 per person. But I was glad that we did it.
Back in the Marina Grande we decided to take the funicular up to Capri town. Our wait time was about 20 minutes. Once up there we had a lunch with a decidedly Niagara Fallsian flair and then went back to the funicular. Everyone else on the island (it receives over 20,000,000 visitors per year) decided to do the same thing apparently because it took over an hour and a half to get aboard the machine.
Safely deposited in the harbor area, and with less than 30 minutes before our ferry was scheduled to depart, Malcolm discovered that he had left his windbreaker in the restaurant. At first he thought to forget about it but soon changed his mind and headed back to the funicular. As he disappeared into the throng I despaired at ever seeing him again. Twenty minutes later he was back in line with us with his jacket. The crowds at the funicular had dissipated and they were now standing with us waiting for the ferry. It was standing room only on the ride back to Sorrento and I know for a fact that there were not enough life jackets on board for all passengers.
That evening we enjoyed dinner overlooking the Bay of Napoli from the restaurant in The Foreigners Club, or Circolo Dei Forestieri, as we say in Italy.
