Blue Grotto - a captivating and surreal cave

We were planning a trip to Europe and were looking at all options to make it one of a very memorable one for us. It was our 25th Anniversary and we also wished to punctuate it with a pleasant memory. Paris, Switzerland, Rome chose themselves, there were no debate. Mount Titlis too fitted in smoothly into the itinerary, maybe the thought of snow made it another natural. On filling up all slots were booked and an acceptable itinerary made. But this still left us an open day in Rome which was blank.  We were typically tourist trying to squeeze in time and money for the maximum returns.

The macro agenda had us spending three days in Rome, of which we would use one day to go on a day trip to a close by wonder. Leaning Tower of Pisa, Pompeii, Florence, Naples, Athens, Venice etc.etc. were all thrown at us in all grandeur by the omniscient internet. All the options were diligently researched, checked, reviewed, re-reviewed and long deliberations held. This only confused us more and more and more. Slowly common sense prevailed and we began filtering them down to suit available time, budget and convenience. Finally it dropped down to two - Leaning Tower of Pisa and Pompeii.

An acquaintance in Singapore who had done this, recommended us to fit in Venice if possible, he said. Pisa is a waste of time he also said, its more of a single moment photo opportunity, once this is done then its all over.  As Venice was never there in the play of things, we took his input on Pisa for dropping it. So our choice was Pompeii and we started reading it up. Out of the blue one day at Viator- Capri jumped out in all its pristine glory. An island off the coast of naples and boasted of having a Blue Grotto which was supposed to be out of the world. More we researched, more was the praise Capri had, including the Blue Grotto. We threw Pompeii out and all unanimously decided to include Capri in the day trip and we booked our tickets.




It was $145 per head which included a Lunch but did not include Blue Grotto. That was advised would cost another Euro 35 extra per person. Thats how we had decided on Capri. Now for the tour itself.


To reach Capri you will have to first reach Naples. Naples is located south of Rome about 3 hours by road. With a population of 3 Mio it is rated as one of the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Wikipedia will give you ore details if you are interested.  Capri is an island which is located off the Sorrentine Peninsula and about a hours ride by ferry from Naples.

Capri is the island which is marked with a Red Mark.

The Bus started from here. This looks so clean but actually see below picture

Actual area, graffiti on walls and looked quite shady

Our bus was to start from Rome at about 7 AM. We may have been about 25 people in the Bus taking this tour. Viator was the Tour Operator.The place we were to be was Hotel Capitol, when we reached there the bus had already come. We gave the lady our tickets and got into the bus. The place looked quite shady, maybe being early in the day and the sun was just rising may have created this shady ambience. Had picked up a couple of croissants and we had them before entering the bus.

Gokul enjoying his Croissant

The bus started around 7.30 am or so and slowly wound its way through the streets of Rome. In course of time we moved out of the city and hit the highway.

Island of Capri showing Anacapri

We settled down in two rows. Shyama and Gokul taking the window seats and me and Vrinda taking the aisle seats. The journey was expected to be at least three hours and we would be having a small breakfast stop midway. We passed some beautiful Italian country side dotted with historic monuments and locations. After a period of time we sighted Vesuvius the quite active volcano. It does look quite scary to see what destruction this could do if it erupts. Finally we drove into an area slowly teeming with vehicles and houses. We were reaching Naples. Naples is supposed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Its ironical, as the word Naples is derived from the  Latin word Neopolis which means "New City". It has a very busy port and is one of the major gateways of Europe. Its present population is about 4 Million.

Our driver then drove into a Parking lot reserved for buses and we disembarked. The air was warm and the whole place was quite crowded. We were herded together and led to the pier which was about a few minutes walk from the Parking Lot. There were a few piers from which Ferries to Capri depart at short intervals. We hung around took pictures and waited for our Ferry to come. Soon the ferry did come, well it was a gigantic ne and had two decks one on top a smaller one and one air conditioned in the lower deck. On a rough back of the envelope calculation, noticed that it could accommodate about a 1000 passengers.  There was a small bar dealing with Beer. coffee snacks etc. and most people were either sitting around or lazing it out. The whole ride would be about an hour till we reached Capri. We again passed Vesuvius which was on the left hand side and made our way quite smoothly to Capri.

After an uneventful voyage for about an hour we reached the isle of Capri. well, I should mention that there are a number of ferries plying to Capri from Naples. Some are slow which take about an hour and a half. There are time the sea is rough at this time they suspend all the fast service and only have the slow boats ferrying people. We all got of in a hurry (strange all the people sitting quite docile suddenly seem to have a lot of fire in them when they have to get off,) outside a lot of people queued up waiting to board the boat for the trip back to Naples.