Ok, so maybe I'm a huge nerd, but the theme of the day for me has been Lord of the Rings. To a point. It's been a day of hiking and adventuring into the Caprescian Island wilderness.
Since arriving here in Capri, my cousin Johnny has been full of grand plans and adventurous ideas. Each day over breakfast, we've talked ambitiously over an average of three big events per day (keep in mind, that today marks only my fourth day (third morning) here). And generally, we've accomplished about one and a half. Yesterday, we accompanied my aunt Diana (Johnny's mother) and Stella to the market to purchase fresh produce from the stands and il vagabundo, the man who sells olives and mozzarella among other goods from the back of a chilled truck at the entrance of the market. The walk there took about fifteen or twenty minutes along the busier thoroughfare of the lovely city/town of Anacapri, meaning 'upper Capri.' We then prepared sandwiches for our afternoon trek down the Phoenician Steps and through the local neighborhoods to the rocky beach most favored by the locals at il Bagni Tiberio (I should ask, now, that you please excuse or at least ignore any poor translations or misspelled Italian words - I'm still fairly Spanish minded and I'm afraid the phonetics between the two languages differ slightly). Our evening yesterday was then capped off by a homemade dinner up here at the Villa la Pietra as my uncle made use of the abundance of apricots on the property to make a most delicious pork marinade before we headed out to the Villa San Michele for a mezzo-soprano and piano-forte concert. The Villa San Michele looks simple and welcoming from the exterior with its whitewashed walls and calmly creeping vines. It sits at the end of the most populous and pedestrian street in the down-town area of Anacapri, marking the end of civilization before you begin the descent along those same Phoenician steps, and it was erected as a personal palace of sorts for the Swedish doctor/philosopher/lover of the arts Axel Munthe. As I learned on our guided walk to il Faro this morning, almost every large and/or notable building on the island is somehow connected back to Mr. Munthe, and as such the island has seen in the past hundred years or so a remarkable influx of Swedish tourists. Now, his Villa is a museum and a sanctuary for artists, mostly Swedish, who feel so inspired, as Axel Munthe did, to convey the island's influence on their talents and their works.
This morning's adventures began with a mild hike from the middle of town to il Faro, the lighthouse. It was set up and guided by students working and studying at la casarossa, an aptly named red house that is home to a plethora of scattered artwork of the island. In listening to our guides rattle off in Italian, I think it's safe to say that I picked up the meaning of maybe every fifth word or so. By the time I could recognize that I understood a word, so many more had passed that I had lost my vague picture of the story being painted for us. Fortunately, one of our guides, Giovanni, spoke excellent English and offered Johnny, myself, and Gabrielle, a delightful German lady with again, impeccable English, a run-down of the most essential facts of each stop-and-schpiel we made. From our point at the peak with the lighthouse, we probably should have grabbed a food, but with snacks in our bags, sunscreen on our necks and water in our bottles, we decided to make the voyage along the coast up the Sendiero di Fortini, a hike up and down the mountainous terrain, sometimes dipping closer to the water and other times winding up to crazy heights. To stay on the path, we followed not tour guides but small red painted dots on assorted boulders and trees, the lines of the more freshly cut steps into the terrain as compared to having to find mountainous footholds, and Johnny's own memory. The trip was not without a couple of mini-adventures. As you might be able to guess from the word fortini, it was a walk connecting the now ruinous but once grand and functional forts that protected the coast. We would pause in the shade of each one, pretend to be firing cannons out the vistas and take a couple of silly cousin pictures before continuing on our way. The hike took us roughly four and a half hours (and we might have gotten slightly lost in the wilder back paths between properties and the path we wanted) before dropping us conveniently at our intended destination of the Grotta Azurra, the blue grotto. We waited about an hour or so until the tour boats had left and the water had calmed down before stripping down to our swim suits and plunging into the water after the natives. Grabbing firmly onto a chain suspended through (but not perpendicular to) the entrance, we pulled ourselves into the calm of the cave. It is rumored (though perhaps only by my cousin) that the man who made it a famous tourist spot became so enamored with the cave not only because of its eerie blue light, a reflection of the sunlight off of the clear white sand at such tremendous depths, but because, in an attempt to keep him out, locals told him the grotto was haunted. As we dried off, me sitting in the sun and Johnny resting his sunburned Scandinavian back in the shade, witnessed a true local tradition as boys, roughly around my age but maybe slightly younger, commenced a ritual of fun in jumping and flipping off of the side of the cliff and into the water at the mouth of the grotto. I was tempted to join in the fun (and Johnny did!) but fatigue and too much common sense unfortunately got the better of me today. Perhaps next time, if I can make it down there again before I leave, I'll make those boys show me how it's done.
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