One Final Capri Getaway...Or 2nd to Final

View from our hotel's pool deck - love the lemon tree, with the
12th century monastery and the Tyrrhenian Sea beyond.

A friend and I were talking about how much we wanted to go back to Capri and when could we do a day trip and how we wished we could spend the night. Then we thought, "Why can't we spend the night?" and made a plan for the following week. This was back in May. Now you all know how much I love Capri. With every visit - has it been half a dozen now (!) - I return home and write a post on how wonderful Capri is. So here is yet another of those posts. Once you get out of the crowds and just spend some time walking, Capri is magical. Sweet smelling flowers line walls and gates that hide dreamy homes and peeks of sea views. Then you might reach a piazza or a viewpoint or a break in the greenery to see that gorgeous water, possibly the Faraglioni (the three, rock stacks off of Capri), or perhaps looking west to Monte Solaro, at the top of which is a viewpoint and seasonal cafe with world class views.

Lido Baby

My friend and I decided to go a little fancy and booked into Hotel Flora, located right near all the action in the town of Capri. The plan was walk, beach, eat in no specific order. To our delight, the hotel was incredible - hand painted tile work, a pool deck overlooking the 750 year old Certosa di San Giacomo and the ocean beyond it, and our room was a beautifully decorated suite. We set out for a favorite walk, going past the famous Hotel Quisisana and the numerous, ritzy stores lining the pedestrian path, then up a tiny dogleg before getting onto the flat, Via Tragara. Since we had our beach bags with us, once we reached one of Capri's best viewing piazzas, we then continued down, down, down lots of steps to the base of the Faraglioni, where my friend had gone to a beach club on a prior trip. Lunch at the Lido restaurant was delicious, but the view would have made anything we ate worth the trip. Spending a couple of hours on the "lido" capped off our sunny afternoon. I use the term lido loosely since there is no actual beach, more of a concrete slab with a ladder down into the still very cold water. Which didn't matter in such a gorgeous setting.

Lido view to the mainland, the Sorrentine Peninsula is peeking through

Knowing our time in Italy was drawing to a close, this trip was more about visiting old favorites rather than discovering new ones. Dinner was at Michel'angelo - a restaurant with no view, but the food is amazing, the restaurant has a nice feel to it, and it's about the only, decently priced restaurant I've visited on the island. We re-visited our top shop picks, including the Carthusia perfumery, Arte in Maglia cashmere shop (gorgeous cashmere scarves and wraps), and a bakery that makes the yummiest, local style cookies and gelato (wish I could remember the name of it, but it's located just below the Piazzetta, the little piazza connected to the big piazza where the funicular is located). And the next day we enjoyed a morning by our hotel pool, lunch at my absolute favorite restaurant, La Terrazza Brunella (delicious food, jaw-dropping views, expensive and worth it), and more walking before catching our ferry back to Naples. We didn't even make it over to Anacapri to enjoy the beautiful town there. I'd hope to get in one last Capri visit after this one, but with only nine days to go, I don't see it happening. Although writing this blog post did inspire me to stop halfway through and look into spending our final weekend in Italy on Capri. There is one hotel available in Anacapri only and a 15 minute walk from town. I have a room booked that I can cancel by Tuesday, so we have two days to decide just where we'll spend our final weekend in Italy. The other top choice is Gubbio, a hill town located in Umbria, staying in a Ducal Palace. Tough choice.

View from La Terrazza Brunella