Anacapri - 9/26
Note: these were written up in the past week, but I'm posting them now. So no, I'm currently not in Italy (sadly).
We headed off to Anacapri in the morning, which is apparently the other city on this island (the first one being Capri itself). The bus ride was rather terror-inducing, though my stomach was extremely grateful that it wasn't nausea-inducing as well. Anacapri is at the top of the island, and to get there, the tiny bus had to wend its way through narrow mountain roads. At times, it looked like only a foot-tall rail was between us and a perpendicular drop. I think my mom, who is scared of heights, may have turned a little green.
Anacapri has just as many tourists as Capri, or at least it did in the little section that we went to. We rode a little gondola to the veeery tip top of the mountain. While my mom may have turned even greener at the sight of the gondolas, which were single chairs instead of large enclosed spaces, we all made it to the top ok.
While looking down over the treetops, I was particularly glad I hadn't worn flip-flops, because knowing me, one of them would have fallen off.
I amused myself during the twenty-minute ride by attempting to identify various sorts of trees (chestnut, oak, pomegranate!, other stuff I couldn't figure out) and by taking pictures of random things, like a little tiled garden filled with assorted figurines.
We took about twenty gazillion pictures at the summit, which sort of takes away my enthusiasm in describing it. It also doesn't help that I have now seen the view of the coast twenty gazillion more times and am heartily sick of taking pictures in front of it, no matter how beautiful it is. It is quite lovely though. It's all rocky drops and turquoise water, spotted with the occasional boat full of tourists. I'm just tired of posing at every single angle imaginable.
We also visited San Michele, which apparently has a very famous book written about it that I had never heard of till now. It has beautiful gardens, but instead of actually noticing new and interesting plants, my sister and I spent most of our time staring at impatiens and popping seed pods. There were many! They were giant and fat and ready to burst, and we were happy to oblige.
That is, we were until we read the sign that said anyone damaging the gardens could be prosecuted...
I was really tired by the time we got down, because hey, Murphy has striken again, and I have come down with a cold. I am hoping that it's getting better, but given the way the past three months have gone, I suspect it is getting worse. So instead of walking down to Villa Tibericus (or something like that), I slept for three hours in the hotel room. From my sister's account, I missed more scenery and thirty-five minutes of walking uphill, which was fine by me. Plus, I probably would have collapsed and tried to sleep on the road anyhow.
After that, I was refreshed enough to take part in the Ginormous Dinner of DOOM, in which most of us (except the moms) decided that not having lunch meant that we could tackle the nine-course tasting menu.
Truly, the Ginormous Dinner of DOOM deserves a picture post, but suffice to say, it was excellent, we were stuffed, my mom had a nice birthday cake (albeit with the wrong name on it, hee!), and we drank lots of wine.
We headed off to Anacapri in the morning, which is apparently the other city on this island (the first one being Capri itself). The bus ride was rather terror-inducing, though my stomach was extremely grateful that it wasn't nausea-inducing as well. Anacapri is at the top of the island, and to get there, the tiny bus had to wend its way through narrow mountain roads. At times, it looked like only a foot-tall rail was between us and a perpendicular drop. I think my mom, who is scared of heights, may have turned a little green.
Anacapri has just as many tourists as Capri, or at least it did in the little section that we went to. We rode a little gondola to the veeery tip top of the mountain. While my mom may have turned even greener at the sight of the gondolas, which were single chairs instead of large enclosed spaces, we all made it to the top ok.
While looking down over the treetops, I was particularly glad I hadn't worn flip-flops, because knowing me, one of them would have fallen off.
I amused myself during the twenty-minute ride by attempting to identify various sorts of trees (chestnut, oak, pomegranate!, other stuff I couldn't figure out) and by taking pictures of random things, like a little tiled garden filled with assorted figurines.
We took about twenty gazillion pictures at the summit, which sort of takes away my enthusiasm in describing it. It also doesn't help that I have now seen the view of the coast twenty gazillion more times and am heartily sick of taking pictures in front of it, no matter how beautiful it is. It is quite lovely though. It's all rocky drops and turquoise water, spotted with the occasional boat full of tourists. I'm just tired of posing at every single angle imaginable.
We also visited San Michele, which apparently has a very famous book written about it that I had never heard of till now. It has beautiful gardens, but instead of actually noticing new and interesting plants, my sister and I spent most of our time staring at impatiens and popping seed pods. There were many! They were giant and fat and ready to burst, and we were happy to oblige.
That is, we were until we read the sign that said anyone damaging the gardens could be prosecuted...
I was really tired by the time we got down, because hey, Murphy has striken again, and I have come down with a cold. I am hoping that it's getting better, but given the way the past three months have gone, I suspect it is getting worse. So instead of walking down to Villa Tibericus (or something like that), I slept for three hours in the hotel room. From my sister's account, I missed more scenery and thirty-five minutes of walking uphill, which was fine by me. Plus, I probably would have collapsed and tried to sleep on the road anyhow.
After that, I was refreshed enough to take part in the Ginormous Dinner of DOOM, in which most of us (except the moms) decided that not having lunch meant that we could tackle the nine-course tasting menu.
Truly, the Ginormous Dinner of DOOM deserves a picture post, but suffice to say, it was excellent, we were stuffed, my mom had a nice birthday cake (albeit with the wrong name on it, hee!), and we drank lots of wine.