The Island Of Capri

Hello,

The island of Capri is wonderful and definitely worth a visit.  However, don't just settle for a day trip, as the place is heaving for much of the day.  Try and stay over for a night or two if you can.  My friend and I stayed in a lovely apartment which was part of the old monastery of AnaCapri and it was lovely.

We walked the Pizzolungo trail, which takes you past the famous arch and the Faraglioni (the three fingers)

This is a lovely trail, but there are over 270 steps to climb if you travel the wrong way round.  So we started from the centre of Capri town and headed straight for the arches, then followed the coastal path down towards the Grotto, past the pink house that looks like a large boat.

As you can see, the arch was undergoing maintenance when we visited - to prevent it from falling down they are pumping concrete into it.  It is a beautiful walk that takes a good couple of hours to complete, but it's well worth it.

You can also take a trip along the other side of the island, along the old walk of the forts.  They have all of these tiles that explain what wildlife you can find on the island, along with some history about the forts.  The trip is supposed to be 3.5 miles, but you spend so long reading the tiles that it takes much longer to traverse than you realise!

There is a little cactus garden hidden along the route, which is a pleasant surprise.  The scenery is stunning and sometimes you don't feel like you're on a Mediterranean island at all.

You know you're getting close to the end of the walk when you can see the lighthouse in the distance.  Ambling through the trees and looking down on small blue lagoons, the views are amazing and the walk well worth it.

We timed our walk so that we'd be able to chill out and watch the sun go down, before catching a bus back to Ani Capri for the night.  Another reason to stay the night, if you can.

We had planned to visit the blue lagoon, but due to the high tides it was not possible for us to go on this trip.

More about Capri to come on the next blog.


Some useful information can be found here.
http://www.capri.com/

Villa Oplontis - An Unexpected Gem

Hi readers,

Thanks for coming back to my blog to read about my holiday to Italy last September.

This time, I'm going to show you a little gem that my friend and I visited.  It is called the Villa Oplontis (or the Villa Poppaea) and has been so wonderfully preserved and restored that I guarantee that you won't be disappointed if you visit.  I could really imagine what it might have been like to live there.

We travelled from Sorrento to Torre Annunziata by train and it was a short walk from the station, which was clearly signposted.

The villa was lovely and peaceful with few visitors, which is what I think makes this such a gem.  As you walk down towards the villa you get a real feeling of its sheer size.  It's huge!

There are a number of frescoes on the walls from different time periods.  Some were found like this but others have been very carefully restored to give you a real glimpse of the beautiful decorations that adorned this property.

The house was built over two floors, so the people that lived here were wealthy.  It is thought that the villa had been damaged in an earlier earthquake back in AD62, with construction work being undertaken when the volcano finally erupted in AD79.

I love this central water collection area, which is believed to have had a fountain in the middle.  This would have been an impressive addition to any home.

There was a large square, possibly for a garden (shown top).  There was also space for what looks like some form of swimming pool or spa pool (bottom).  It is uncertain what this pool would have been used for, but I liked to imagine that the villa might have been home to a bunch of Gladiators and they used the villa for training purposes.  I may have watched far too much Spartacus, though!

They found these doors in the villa, which had been beautifully preserved in the lave mud flow.  They haven't been cleaned up as they would probably fall apart, but it gives you a real sense of the place.

They took a lot of effort to adorn the front of the property as well, with this façade being painted in a similar way to the indoor rooms.  It was absolutely stunning.

What gets me the most is that this property was almost completely engulfed in lave mud, ash and pretty much everything else a volcano has thrown at it.  Yet it has survived so spectacularly.

To read more about this and other villas in the area, please try this web page
http://www.oplontisproject.org/


Next Time: Walking Round Capri