06-06-04 – Capri, Round 2 (May 30 – June 1)
Capri’s vengeful seafood had robbed me of my weekend. This time around, I was determined to make up for lost time. Of course, in Capri, that generally implies lying about on the beach, eating overpriced food, and buying worthless knicknacks. How Hubert Schneider, a New Yorker we met, could spend six days on Capri I could not fathom. Maybe he was documenting the entire island using his peculiar 3D camera, an ancient device with two lenses and a special contraption for viewing prints. We parted with a friendly handshake under the Faro (lighthouse) that watched over sunbathers avoiding tan lines.
Perhaps by expecting a perfect vacation, I was disillusioned when I did not find it. The waiters seemed more pushy, the tourists more numerous, the residents more snooty, and the sea somehow less blue. I began to see how the islanders ran things, charging €10 for cappucino and a pair of stale mini-pizzas, and cutting fellow natives huge deals while complaining under their breath about the besky throngs of tourists.
Of course, my negativity could not possibly persist with such pulchritude everywhere. The weather, of course, was perfect thanks to Dad’s unbeatable travel karma (the high pressure front moving through didn’t hurt either). The food, overall, was quite good. Despite my previous experiences, we even at at Il Cucciolo again – another tasty dinner, washed down with a bottle of Classico Chianti and a discount thanks to Abby’s borrowed copy of Let’s Go Italy.
Aside from taking in the sun and emptying out the pocketbook, I also made it back to the Grotta Azzurra, and saw the Axel Munthe museum. Still, there’s not too much to see on the island; we were happy to hop the ferry to Sorrento.
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