Yesterday was a long one…we walked to the port in Sorrento (which involved the first of many steps during the day)…following google maps we walked to the elevator which theoretically should have taken us down the the port (the city is built on a cliff above the water)…but it was closed till April so we had to walk down. We missed our targeted boat but got the next ferry to Capri, 30 minutes later. Below is a photo of the road to the port far below the city center.
When we arrived at the Port I had in mind walking up Monte Solaro so we started walking to the starting point, Anacapri…and ended up walking up and up and up the Phoenician steps…921 in total. They were built between the 7th and 6th century B.C. It was a lot of steps but the views were spectacular. When we got to the top, Tracey took the road the last part and Susan, Tim and I took the steps the rest of the way to Anacapri which wasn’t too far.
When we reached Anacapri, they all decided to take the cable car up the mountain (Tracey just hopped on when she got there), so that’s what we all did…unfortunately at the top it was cloudy so the view was obscured from most sides of the mountain. The ride up was about 13 minutes and cold, but the views from the chairs was very pretty.
After looking around a bit at the top we took the cable car (really a 1 person chairlift) down and had lunch in the Anacapri main square. The restaurant’s specialty seemed to be lemonade served in giant lemons. I had sardines and arancini (a rice ball, normally filled with cheese or meat, but this one was just rice but very tasty). We learned to ask the price of drinks next time…cokes were 6 euros…same as the rice ball.
After lunch we waked around the area, did a bit of shopping, (lemon is the theme of Capri and Sorrento..they grow them here in the volcanic ash) then I headed off the walk up the mountain, as we had a lot of time..or so I thought. First I made a wrong turn when the trail split in two. I was going down…so I figured I was heading the wrong way. I also learned (much later) that in Europe my gps will not work when I am talking on the phone. I corrected my error but it took quite a while. I headed up and got about 60% of the way up but had to turn back as I had intended to take the chair lift back down but realized it closed at 4pm…and I was no where near the top at that time. I headed down, frustrated that the gps wasn’t working…asked directions (I was going the right way), but missed the steps down, so walked on the busy road instead, which took much longer. I made the boat (5:45 departure) by about 10 minutes!
I had 28000 steps at the end of the day and over 50 flights of stairs! We were all pretty tired as Tim, Susan and Tracey had taken the 921 steps down to the harbor.
Next stop: Pompeii!