Today we were off to explore Capri, but first, the morning workout in Positano. We started the day off with a “run” around the city, which is like hills on steroids (hills and stairs, to be exact). We made our way down to the main harbor area and Tsana and Anna did hill repeats, but Dave just did a single and made his way back home. After showers and a legit breakfast at our hotel, we caught a 10am ferry over to Capri. During the ferry ride, Italian bros, who worked for the ferry company, were handing out limoncello spritzes, which consisted of limoncello, prosecco, and some weird slush stuff. Anna decided it was too early for that, so on we went to Capri.
We made it to Capri in about a half hour and boy, was it crowded! We took a funicular, which is like an angled cable train up to the top of the island. Up at the top it was even more crowded, but we spotted a little stand that was selling huge frozen lemons hollowed out and filled with lemon sorbetto, so we bought 2 of those and shared them and it was delicious (and yes, very touristy, but hey, we are tourists!).
We navigated through the crowds and by the very expensive high fashion stores and eventually found our way to a pretty secluded and shady little street that had a little bench, and so sat there for quite a while, people/bird watched (now, that’s a thing, apparently), and imitated all the Instagram photos we saw (see photos below).
After around 30 minutes of sitting, we made our way back to the crowded spots and did a bit of shopping for limoncello for Anna, which was successful. Most importantly, we got Anna her first affogato ever - and it was delightful (and gave Tsana the needed swing she needed - girl was strugglin’).
Tsana heard that one of the things to do on Capri was to do a wine tasting, which Anna and Dave were down to try. Dave did some quick googling and found the Capri Wine Hotel not too far away, which seemed to fit the bill, so we set off in that direction. The road to this hotel did not seem promising; there was no sidewalk, we were almost getting hit by cars flying around tight turns, and we were most definitely off the beaten path. We eventually found the hotel, which seemed deserted and under construction, kind of? But…it had a mini lemon grove!
We spoke with the receptionist and Dave asked if it was possible to sit and drink some wine. The woman seemed a little shocked as we didn’t have a reservation (although not a soul was there) and called someone up. A man arrived (we later found out was the owner) and was very accommodating, and said “would you like to sit out on our terrace”, and of course, we obliged, and followed him outside. He whisked us away through these rows of grapes and eventually out onto a terrace nestled in the hills of Capri, overlooking the water. It was absolutely magical! He asked us what kind of wine we wanted to drink and we said, “we are in your hands”. He went off and came back quickly with 2 glasses of wine and some water. The wine was out of this world (water was good, too). We had this amazing secluded spot tucked away on this extremely crazy island and it just seemed too good to believe. We were also asked to come stay at the hotel several times by the owner- nice guy!
After about 20 minutes of sitting there another couple sat near us and they ordered a Caprese salad that looked amazing, so we ordered one as well. It came with tomato, basil, and burrata, and was absolutely to die for. None of us had eaten cheese since the cheese tour in Ostuni, and we were glad to be back.
We absolutely loved it up there, but needed some real food, and eventually had to catch a ferry back to Positano. The hotel chef wasn’t on that day, but if he was, we absolutely would have stayed all night (well, until our 6pm ferry, at least)! But we had to leave heaven and make our way back down the very large mountain. We found a 4.8 star place near the port and headed there. It didn’t look all that great from the outside (the EDM music at 4pm could have been a tip off), but we believed the Google rating system and sat down. You guys, this is why we shouldn’t believe the internet or AI - this place was horrid. We each received our meal and after just a couple bites each we all realized that this was probably the worst place we’ve eaten in Italy (or ever, really)! We all had more than 90% of our meals left and sent them back. The only up-side is that they took 50 euros off our bill, which was nice, after he asked us to “be honest” and we told him it wasn’t a great place. We determined that 1000 people couldn’t be wrong about the ratings (unless they are all bots from Russia), so maybe they also got 50 euro off their bills, too!
Once back on the ferry home, the limoncello bros were back, and better than ever, and Dave and Anna were ready! One limoncello spritz, as homemade as it gets (we still don’t know what the slush stuff was), and Anna described it as “sickingly sweet,” but her and Dave still drank it. We assumed it was free because they weren’t taking money in the morning, but they asked for 10 euros from all the unsuspecting AFTERNOON victims.
Once home, we were still hungry from the horrible dinner in Capri, but were all in a weird mood, so we settled on splitting a crappy sandwich and then also had some mediocre gelato to go along with it (the lady at the register had a RBF and we were intimidated and just wanted to leave). The day had very high highs and low lows for sure!