May 21. Capri.
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| Capri |
Despite predictions of rain which never came, we went
to Capri and headed straight for Villa San Michele. Well, not exactly
straight, since the road winds back and forth going up and up and up.
The whole island is only 5 miles long, 1½ wide and over 2 miles high
at its top—in other words, a tall, rocky place with amazing views
of the Bay of Naples and the Amalfi Coast.
The villa was built over many years in the last part
of the 19th and first part of the 20th
centuries by Axel Munthe, an eccentric but brilliant Swedish doctor.
He practiced medicine in Rome and Naples treating rich and poor alike
without charge. He was fascinated by antiquities and nature, both of
which are highlighted in the villa he designed and apparently built
much of himself. The terrace is particularly striking and rivals the
one in Ravello that Stew had wanted to revisit. Munthe, who died well
into his 90s, left the house and grounds to Sweden to administer for
cultural and scientific purposes.
The villa is just outside the town of Anacapri, a
comparatively laid-back part of the island. After lunch, we took a
bus down from there to the hyper-fashionable town of Capri, where top
line shops overcharge for everything. For a while, we were lost in
the maze of boutiques on narrow streets, but eventually, not one
penny the poorer, we found our way back to the grubby little port for
our jet boat back to Sorrento.
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| View of the Port of Capri from San Michele |
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| The Study at San Michele |
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| The Bedroom at San Michele |
PS: I (Stew) meant to mention that
in the Correale Museum, I saw something I'd never come across before:
a 16th
or 17th
century clock you could see at night. Some Pope—an Alexander, I
think—wanted to know what time it was at night, so he had a clock
made that showed the hours by number (like a digital clock) lit from
behind by a candle! Neat!
PPS: for Jean...On Capri...just outside San Michele...is the place that is credited with inventing Limoncello! Stopped in and watched the 'laboritorio' but did not sample the product. It was way too early in the day for me. Stew said it was really different. And good! But at our restaurant, they give us limoncello every night after dinner. The first shot is gratis...then it is 2 euro each! So civilized.
