If you read yesterday's blog, you know that we postponed our trip to Capri due to a "strike" on the island. Today it appeared that the strike is over, power to the people! So we got our tickets this morning and boarded a boat for the island.
About five minutes before we boarded the boat, it started to rain. At first, it was sort of a light drizzle. By the time we got off the boat on the island, it was a constant, steady rain. It felt like we were back in Portland. What the heck!
Capri is a beautiful rocky island a couple miles off the coast by Sorrento. It is known for its grotto caves -- there are two popular grottos named after their primary colors (azzuro or blue grotto, and the emerald grotto), as well as some intensely upscale shopping at the top of the island.
Upon arrival, we immediately bought an umbrella which turned out to be our best purchase of the day. The second thing we did was find the tram that would take us to the top of the island. Since the weather was so bad, we figured seeing the grottos would not be a good idea. They are right on the water, and the sea tends to get a little "angry" when it's this rainy out.
By the time we reached the top via tram, we were starting to get a little peckish. We figured, let's find a less expensive restaurant to eat a bite and refresh before we deal with more rain. We must have walked for 20 minutes, looking at menus and trying to find a meal we could eat for under $70. Seriously.
We finally went down a back alley to a place that we later realized catered to Asian tour groups.
A little note here: if the walkway to the restaurant smells like poop wrapped in dead fish, that should be a sign. Did we go in? Did we wait around to be seated? Did we demand to be seated? Why yes. Yes, we did.
We ordered simple ravioli and fried calimari and shrimp. What we got were things with eyes. Lots of eyes. There were whole shrimp -- with eyes -- as well as tiny little fish that were about the size of sardines, deep fried, with eyes.
We ate a lot of bread. They even made the chocolate cake taste bad. How does that happen here in Italy???
We ate as quickly as we could among the cacophony of tour groups that were seated around us. It was a little bit difficult to catch the waiter's attention because he was trying to say the few words in English that folks might understand. "Knife! Knife! Knife!" "Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!"
We left via the cesspool walkway and up another flight of stairs. I asked Hannah if we could go a little slower. "Walking up stairs after eating fishheads tastes bad."
We spent the rest of the afternoon huddled under our single green umbrella, dodging puddles and looking in windows of very expensive shops -- Prada, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana -- drooling a little.
Hannah tried on some clothes at the Benetton store. I tried on a Rolex watch that had a 4,600 Euro price tag! I know I shouldn't have tried it on, but I just wanted to say I did. It was NICE. It felt so good -- kinda heavy. But so is a car.
We ended up escaping with the umbrella and a new pair of sandals for me from the Benetton store. Not too bad.
Then we headed back down to the pier to wait for our boat home. We stopped and asked a dock worker where we should wait for our particular boat, and he said dock #13. So we did. We waited for 45 minutes. We waited until the ship at dock 13 boarded -- which was headed for SORRENTO and not Positano. We waited until the ship we were supposed to take left the marina.
I was livid. We ASKED. So we went back to the little dude who told us where to wait and pointed to our ticket. He looked at it as if to say, "Oh! You wanted to go to POSITANO." GRRR. Then we went back to the ticket office and bought ANOTHER ticket on another boat with another company. It was that or take a boat to Sorrento and then take another SITA bus back. Honestly, we'd pay anything not to take a bus again.
Now it's time for dinner here. Love to you all!
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