4. The Blue Grotto (and American Woman)

So, after the bus deposited us by the side of the road in Sorrento, we gratefully found our room and collapsed for a bit. But nothing gets these intrepid travellers down for long! Oh no. We perked up eventually (helped by the fact that our room was lovely, the view stupendous, and the bathroom huge. Did I mention that our bathroom in Rome was too small to swing a rat? And that the shower was like, literally, about a foot square. If I dropped my shampoo – which I did, of course – I actually had to open the door so I could bend over to pick it up. And the doors – there were two that met at a corner – continually fell off. So sometimes I might emit a little scream as these calamaties came all at once and Andrew would have to come and rescue me, as I couldn’t hold a shower door and a shampoo bottle all at once for very long.) Anyway, we perked up and went to visit Sorrento. It is beautiful, kind of like all the posh shopping bits of Rome strung along a cliff edge. Bit sick of luxury shops we can’t afford, 

but we found some dinner and visited the local railway station. Which was handy because it turned out there was going to be a rail strike the next day, so we decided that it was Capri on Thursday, and Pompeii on Friday. 

We have found we wake early and get tired early, our circadian rythms being all confused at the moment, so we got organised and off to Capri nice and early this morning. We took at large ferry from Sorrento, then decided to go straight for the Blue Grotto, which meant moving to a small boat. For some reason, we suddenly encountered all the American tourists we had avoided thus far. As I said to Christopher, low dollar plus high euro equals few Americans, but apparantly they were all hiding in Capri waiting for us. To be fair, they were generally fine except for one, a very large woman who clambered in just as we were about to set off. The boat immediatly listed to her side. She and her husband were from Texas, and as he said, she was “bigger than life!”. 

Right, so off we went, sailing around the lovely Capri coast line – high

ragged cliffs, beautiful blue water, sun shining etc, it was perfect. The skipper had a New Zealand cap on and it turned out American Woman had been to New Zealand. We resolved not to tell her we hailed from this BEAUTIFUL country she had been ALL AROUND!!!! 

The Blue Grotto, for those who have not heard of it, is a grotto (cave I guess) hidden away behind a cliff face of Capri in which, for some scientific reason I can’t remember, the water is an astonishing blue colour. The entrance (or HOLE as American Woman called it, as in “THERE’S THE HOLE!!!” which it wasn’t, it was around another corner) to the grotto is very small, so getting in is quite a feat. You transfer to a much smaller, long and narrow boat. There is a cable strung from outside to inside the grotto. The water rises and falls, making the entrance alternately big enough, or really not big enough at all, to get in. The boatman has to time it right, position his boat at the entrance, and at just the right moment, when the entrance is large, everyone ducks, he pulls on the wire, the boat glides in, and we all sit up again. The first boatman we saw doing this just about got decapitated, so it all looked very exciting. 

The American Woman’s husband rather hilariously fell into the sea as he tried to transfer to the small boat. It didn’t quell his spirit, of course, and I’m sure he’ll enjoy telling the story at every dinner party he goes to for the next 5 years. 

Eventually it was our turn and we squished down in the boat, our heads below the edge, and it was actually quite exciting as we zoomed inside. Once inside, I clambered to a sitting position and looked around – it was really quite amazing. There is a small opening of light at the entrance, and all is blackness, except for the water which is an iridescent, milky but kind of electric blue. Stunning. I took some photos which are fabulous (by the way, we left cable for connecting phone to computer at home, so you’ll have to wait for that special pleasure!), and then after 5 mins or so, the whole duck/pull/zoom/sit up manouver is repeated. 

Then we got back into the bigger boat, and went back to the main marina of Capri. On the way, we got chatting to the skipper, and it turned out he had lived for 20 years in Island Bay. His grandfather had moved to New Zealand before 1900, and his father was born there. The skipper was born in Italy but had moved there for a while, and he still has family there. Was quite satisfied by this, because it is sort of not done for Kiwis to travel the globe without having one completely unlikely chance meeting with a fellow kiwi, so now we have had ours. 

We meandered around Capri, had some lunch, and took the ferry back to Sorrento. Where I am now finished updating you!! So I’ll go back to the hotel and have a little rest from my endeavours.