Isle of Capri

 We woke up to a beautiful sunny day in Sorrento and decided that this would be the day to take a boat out to Capri. 

Joining the throng to get on the boat

 Capri is famous for the Blue Grotto, and has apparently been a resort getaway for the rich and famous since the Roman Empire. Quite unfortunately, the Blue Grotto was closed once we got to the island because of... well we aren't sure why. Either the water was a little too choppy or the rowboat captain slept in. But here are some pictures of it so you can see just how cool it would have been!

Not us in those boats. Frowny face.

It looks so awesome! We'll just have to go back and see it another time. We did get to explore the island in the meantime. There are two towns, Capri and Anacapri. The boats land in the harbor of Capri but the actual town of Capri is up on top of a huge hill, so we took a funicular up to the actual town. Beeeeeeeautiful!

View from the top of the funicular

We wandered through all kinds of streets with high-end stores and hotels, and made our way to a big park at the top of the town for some great views.

Next we took a bus to the other side of the island to check out Anacapri. The bus ride was similar to the ride down the Amalfi coast, but at a much slower pace. The drivers on Capri seemed to realize that there were sheer cliffs at the side of the road and acknowledged this bit of information before commandeering a busload of people.

Side of the road, and then... nothing!

Town of Capri

There were only a few things to actually see in Anacapri. The real draw is a chairlift ride to the highest point of the island. You can see all directions from the viewpoint at the top.

Off we go! Wave, Brannan!

Anacapri. Getting higher...

And higher...

Do de do...

And higher!

Made it to the top!

View of Naples on the other side of the bay

 After all that ooohing and aahing, we headed back down for the trip back to Capri town then a boat back to Sorrento.

Just to validate our theory that southern Italy makes no sense, we were headed back to the docks to find our boat to Sorrento and passed some people doing the same. They were quite confused and arguing about whether they really knew where they were going. One guy in the group kept telling the others that "the lady at the desk told me it was leaving from pier number 4 or number 8!"  He seemed very certain and would not be swayed. So we followed them down the dock... no boat at #4... no boat at #8 (it was scheduled to leave in about 15 minutes). He plopped down on a bench near pier #8 and told the others that he was going to wait there for the boat. We (being skeptical about anything some lady at a desk tells you) kept walking down the dock and discovered our boat to Sorrento at #13 boarding all its passengers.  We wonder if that group of people is still sitting there on the dock.

Now, as a side story, we were walking down the shopping street in Sorrento later that night on our way home and passed by a leather sandal store that had a sign saying "handmade in 5 minutes".  Uuuuurrrrrch! (the sound of brakes screeching to a halt)

It was soooo awesome! First you picked the style and color you wanted, which was a hard task since there were thousands of sandals. And then he just measured and hammered away

Measuring the straps to my foot

He told me my heel was too bony - I'm trying not to have a complex about it. Haha!

Adding a buckle

Voila!

Thank you for joining me in this tangential story, but it really was pretty awesome to see it done by hand. Great souvenir!

I think that is all we have from our dear Italy. We will miss ye, with your delicious gelato and pasta. Oh yeah, and all that historical stuff too.
Ciao, Italy... and Merhaba, Istanbul!