The Isle of Capri

Once I knew our trip to Italy was booked I went to Borders and pulled out all the travel books I could find on Rome and Southern Italy. I compared them all to each other and settled on two books to purchase. One was Frommer’s Rome day by day, the other Fodor’s Naples, Capri & the Amalfi Coast. The Fodor’s book ended up being our bible. We brought this book with us each day as we ventured out to explore southern Italy and referred to it often.

It rained the first few days we were in Sorrento but it wasn’t going to stop us from enjoying the sites. On our first full day in Italy we decided to visit the island of Capri. From the port of Sorrento you catch a ferry to Capri that took about 20-30 minutes. On a clearer day you probably have a pretty nice view of the island. It was mostly covered in fog as we made our way towards it.

A little history about the island from the Fodor’s book:

“Capri became the center of power in the Roman Empire when Tiberius scattered 12 villas around the island and decided to spend the rest of his life here, refusing to return to Rome even when, 10 years on, he was near death. Far from being a dirty old man interested in orgies, this misunderstood gentleman used Capri as a base to run the ancient Roman Empire. All Tiberius’s hard work and happy play- he indulged in his secret passion for astronomy here- were overlooked by ancient scandalmongers, prime among them Suetonius, who wrote: ‘In Capri they still show the place at the cliff top where Tiberius used to watch his victims being thrown into the sea after prolonged and exquisite tortures. A party of mariners were stationed below, and when the bodies came hurtling down, they whacked at them with oars and boat-hooks, to make sure they were completely dead.’ Thankfully, present-day Capri is less fraught with danger for traveleres, or even to dignitaries from afar.”