capri sun
Laura and I riding the Alicost jet ferry to Capri
Documenting my shirt-hat
The harbor on Capri
Just before entering the Blue Grotto
Laura swimming in the Blue Grotto
Fulfilling my mermaid dreams
The Faraglioni of Capri
Fresh white wine mussels
In the summer there are two Alicost ferries that leave for Capri from Salerno. The “jet” leaves earlier (8:20 AM), arrives later (departs from Capri at 5:15 PM), and takes considerably less travel time if you are planning a day trip. Laura and I walked to a porto, the main commercial port in Salerno, to catch the jet and paid €45 each for our round-trip tickets. The journey was such a nice change of scenery from the bus and did not provide any motion or sea sickness. During the ride I had my linen long-sleeve resting on my head for shade when one of the sleeves flew back and hit the man behind me. He kindly placed it back on my shoulder, which made me feel bad so I tied both sleeves up on my head and was surprised at how much it cooled my head, neck, and shoulders down. He laughed because he thought I was fooling around but then he realized I was going to continue sporting the shirt-hat look. So he laughed harder.
Immediately after docking in Capri’s main port we rushed over to the Blue Grotto boat-tour info booths because we could see from our ferry that one was leaving in the next five minutes. A two hour tour of the entire island, plus the chance to enter the grotto cost us €17 each. We hopped aboard and were excited that the first stop was the Blue Grotto. We each paid an additional €13 to climb into a small rowboat and enter the cave and an extra €5 to “fall in” for a glorious swim. I got some really eerie photos of us underwater, and the other girl in our boat took one of the two of us together. Our guide explained that the intense color in the cave is due to the lack of dark rocks on the cave’s floor. When the sunlight hits the white sands the light reflects the intense blue of the water. If the water level is high enough, all boat passengers have to lie down while the guide pulls the boat through using a chain attached to the mouth of the cave. All the money we spent on our Capri day trip was totally worth it—swimming in the Blue Grotto is something we both will never forget. After our frolic, we continued on our tour of the island while the driver pointed out various sites, like the Faraglioni and the seahorse-shaped rock, and recited fun bits of history about the island.
At the end of our tour we grabbed some gelato and set off to find lunch. Following signs that said “centro,” we journeyed ten minutes up a very steep staircase to the happenin’ part of town. We drooled over more expensive goods and then settled on a restaurant that had fairly priced mussels and clams. We devoured the giant pile of mollusks and side of grilled veggies.
After lunch we got painfully lost trying to find a beach (so sunburnt). Not wanting to risk missing the ferry, we eventually found our way back to the harbor after a couple of soul-comforting gelati and were so desperate to jump in the ocean that we settled for this tiny patch of sand and water by some small anchored row-boats. I collected a ton of sea-glass and then we took refuge in the shade and had ourselves a nice little power-nap. Life sure is rough.
On the ferry back, a swell young lady named Alexa struck up a conversation with me and we talked the whole way back to Salerno, hardly realizing that a thunderstorm had been brewing behind us. Back in Salerno, Laura and I stopped at Nettuno again for our fourth and final gelato of the day. All in all, Capri ended up costing much less than an average stay on the island and if we had been better prepared and oriented on the island, we could have done even more on our ambitious day trip.
