Saturday morning we woke up early, met the group for breakfast (the most expansive, delicious continental breakfast I’ve ever had! Dad – you would have LOVED the donuts! Lauren and I couldn’t get enough!) We then loaded the bus and headed for the post to catch our boat to Capri!
The ferry ride was, again, full of a touristy-photoshoot and an iPod session with Gina! Nothing like boating through the middle of a clear blue sea rocking out to the Nano! When we finally got into Capri Town, we were all speechless – it was BEAUTIFUL! I have never seen anything like it. We were all anxious to get off the boat, and once we did we decided that the first thing we wanted to do was to get a boat tour of the island. While the rest of the group headed to the right of the dock to board the big, group tours, we decided to venture left
and see what the locals had to offer. My fluent-in-Italian roommate Cathy talked to the man at the tourists office who referred us to this older Italian man at a restaurant, who then directed us to a German woman whose husband owned his own boat. They offered us a two-hour, private tour of the Island for 200 Euro – 25 each – full of factual information, swimming and wave-riding! We automatically said yes, and the eight of us climbed aboard!
Our (boat guide? We got in the habit of enthusiastically calling him “our guy!”) took us around the island, pointing out important landmarks, famous homes, nice water-front restraints, good photo opts and fabulous grottos and caves. We passed by the famous Blue Grotto, with his
promise that we would actually get to SWIM through another one that didn’t charge 9 euro and entail an hour wait. He was true to his word, and after going another 10 minutes, we found ourselves at a beautiful alcove, with clear blue water, no competition and a very inviting staircase built into the cliff – perfect for cliff-jumping! We jumped out (me first!) into the perfectly clear blue water!We thought Monterossa had clear water – we clearly had yet to go swimming in the Mediterranean! The water was more than 20 ft deep and we could see straight to the bottom. After frolicking
around in the water, our boat guide took pictures of us jumping off the staircase into the water below! We swam for about half an hour and climbed back into the boat to explore the rest of the island!We kept venturing around the island of Capri, and finally got to the second most famous grotto, the Green Grotto! After seeing that boats were waiting on either
side to travel through, our guide told us to jump off and swim through, and that he would meet us on the other side. Didn’t have to tell us twice! We jumped off the boat, swam through the coral-edged grotto to the other side. We were excited to see the group of boys we had met earlier in the morning (fellow American study-abroaders), and they too jumped off their boat to join us in the water. One of the highlights of the day was then seeing a big tour boat full of Umbra kids. We were very pleased to had spent the extra money and waved “CIAO!” to them as they boated by and we continued to frolic in the grotto. We then got back into the boat and continued on our trip!
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