Ten Days in Heaven

The highlight of the journey was my illicit swim in the Blue Grotto on Capri (see BLUE GROTTO).

Quick Tips:

WHERE TO STAY:

On the Amalfi Coast, park your pack in Atrani, a village nestled between two knuckles of coastland, a five-minute walk from Amalfi. Atrani’s SCALINATELLA HOUSE attracts a steady but manageable stream of young, down-to-earth travelers. In bigger, more expensive Amalfi, the streets teem with stereotypical tourists, overpriced cafés, and cheesy gift shops. In serene Atrani, you can enjoy a glass of wine on the piazza or an afternoon on the beach without tripping over a tourist every five paces.

On Capri, park your pack in Anacapri. In the high season, Capri’s cup runneth over with the wealthy and pseudo-wealthy of the world. But do not despair. This piece of heaven is an absolute must.

Anacapri town provides a moderate alternative to ostentatious Capri town. There are 2 affordable lodges in Anacapri: BUSSOLA DI HERMES and VILLA EVA. But do not visit on a weekend. The island is packed and you will be hard-pressed to find a room anywhere.

Best Way To Get Around:

You do not need a car. In fact, fear cars. People on the local roads drive like maniacs. (If you walk on the roadside, watch yourself.) Navigating into and out of towns is precarious at best, and legal parking is hard to come by.

Buses:

SITA connects Sorrento to Salerno, the length of the Amalfi Coast. Its air-conditioned coaches are frequent, convenient, and cheap. Fare from Sorrento to Amalfi (a 90 MIN journey) is Euro 1,65. Since Amalfi marks the halfway point, you could ostensibly ride the whole Coast for Euro 3,30 (roughly US).

On Capri, SIPPIC buses connect Capri town to Marina Grande (the port), Marina Piccola, and Anacapri. Staniano Autotrasporti connects Anacapri to Faro and the Blue Grotto.

Ferries:

The ferry is the only road to Capri (Euro 10,50 one way), but it is also an alternative to SITA for traveling the Amalfi Coast. Ferries run between AMALFI, CAPRI, POSITANO, SALERNO, SORRENTO, and NAPLES. The major carriers are: ALILAURO, SNAV, NLG, and CARAMAR. Ferries and Buses on the Coast

Scalinatella House is the one and only accommodation in Atrani. "Scalinatella" means "flight of little steps," a feature prevalent in many Amalfi Coast towns.

Scalinatella offers shared rooms for 2-8 persons as well as private rooms. When you check in, you’ll meet Filippo, a small man wearing magnifying spectacles and a broad smile. He answers almost any question with "Ciao" or "No problem."

In addition to the shared rooms, a men’s dormitory is located on the second floor; there is no such dorm for women.

ROOM: There are a couple of drawbacks to Scalinatella. When the family converted the house into a hostel, they put the guest rooms in the center; thus the rooms have no windows. This makes the hostel feel a bit creepy (my fellow lodgers and I nicknamed our rooms "the tomb"). However, in midsummer in southern Italy, you do get a cool night’s sleep. Also, the interior walls end before they reach the ceiling, leaving about a foot of space at the top. While this aids ventilation, it kills privacy. Your next-door neighbor’s whispers sound like Sprint’s you-can-hear-a-pin-drop testing: clear.

If you want a window and walls that go all the way up, Scalinatella also rents private rooms in an annex building nearby the hostel. I stayed 4 nights (Euro 40,00 per night) in my own room with private bath and a pair of glass doors leading onto a little balcony. In the evenings, I sat with my journal and listened to the next-door family’s Italian television humming and supper cutlery clanking.

BATH: The Scalinatella-style shower- in both the dorm and in the private room- is not a stall; it is just a nozzle on the wall. So when you wash, water runs all over the floor. Although this is not unusual in European hostels, if you hate standing in someone else’s bath puddle, Scalinatella won’t work for you.

FOOD: Breakfast and dinner are included in the price of your room. Guests take both meals at Ristorante Piazzetta, A two-room restaurant on the square. Tables seat 4 persons, so meals are an easy way to socialize with other travelers at the hostel.

Gabriele serves the morning meal: coffee (as you like it), orange juice, two pieces of toast, a marmalade-filled croissant, butter and jam.

Dinner is served at 8PM sharp. For Euro 1,50 extra, order some bruschetta; to go with the pasta entrée; it’s cheap and good. Beer costs Euro 1,00-2,00. "Dinner lady" is scary; don’t expect her to introduce herself (hence the title). But she does not bite (I don’t think), and makes for some fun conversation with your table companions.

The Scalinatella family also manages Vettica House in Amalfi (Tel. 39 089 871814) and a lemon grove villa in the hills above Amalfi.

Email: Scalinatella@amalficoast.it

See pictures at: Atrani, Amalfi Coast

Bussola di Hermes is a hostel just outside Anacapri, "the other town" on the island. Most backpackers and grassroots travelers prefer Anacapri to Capri. It’s affordable and considerably less pretentious.

I called Bussola because I was fed up trying to book a room at Villa Eva, made maddeningly pompous by a rave review from Travel and Leisure magazine. Getting a room anywhere on Capri in high season is a feat; reserve as far ahead in advance as you can. Alex, a Canadian I met at Scalinatella, had recommended Bussola to me. "Rita is wonderful," he said, with a questionable glint in his eye.

When we got there, the hostel office was dressed in hundreds of glowing letters from visitors, all addressed to Rita. I could see that Alex was part of a Bussola movement: Rita’s guests really adore her.

A pretty young woman with big, light blue eyes, dark blonde hair, and a bun in the oven marched in: it was Rita. She plopped down at her desk, threw open her registration book, and booked us all in one clean sweep. Then she extracted a map from her drawer. Her manner suggested that this was the important part; it was.

Spreading out the map, she said, "This is what you should do on Capri." I raised an eyebrow. I don’t like being told what to do, especially when traveling. But Rita’s suggested itinerary gave us a glorious day, complete with best scenery, best view of the sunset, and best disco-dancing.

Bussola rooms are filled with natural light and connected on the outside by pavement walkways through the garden. My dorm consisted of bunk beds with room for up to 10 travelers. Some rooms house 4. All rooms are co-ed. Forget the rooster; at 6AM an enthusiastic choir of birds call out the morning.

Bussola di Hermes is not easy to find. The bus from Capri to Anacapri dropped us off at Piazza Vittrio, where a local woman referred to TRAVERSA LA VIGNA as "way out there in the country" and said it would take us 30 minutes to get there. It took us more like 10 minutes, but the route is confusing. In the tangle of tiny alleyways, forks, and dead ends, be prepared to ask for directions 20 times. We did.

Email: Bussola Di Hermes

Pasquale runs Casbah’r, one of three bar-cafés on Piazza Umberto I, Atrani’s only square. HIS proud poster reads: "Enjoy Casbah’r: we have happy hours every day and every night but is not the only way to be happy." Pasquale charges lower prices for Scalinatella lodgers, so be sure to let him know where you sleep at night. Casbah’r serves coffee, gelato, panini, fruit, and pastry, and has Internet available for Euro 4,00 per hour.

On a balmy summer evening, the piazza glitters with candlelight from small tables filling the square. After dinner, around 9PM, travelers and locals alike pour onto the piazza to lounge in cushioned wicker chairs. Take a seat at one of Casbah’r’s tables. Pasquale or one of his staff will bring you beer (Euro 1,00), a half-carafe (Euro 2,50) or full bottle (Euro 5,00) of delicious light wine, or any mixed drink you like (Euro 3,00-6,00). Pasquale is a smooth operator: Ladies, he will surely kiss your hands. He may also ask if you want a ride on his motorcycle after he gets off work at, oh, 3AM (Mediterranean for "last call").

The coast cools off around 10:30 or 11, so have a jacket if you’re going to sit out late. Pasquale will let you take a bottle of wine down to the beach. The locals like to sit there too.

Children play football; after the 2002 World Cup they were cheering "Ronaldo! Ronaldo!" Look out: they think it’s funny when they hit you with the ball. They are cute but dangerous.

Three little boys in particular love to ham it up for the backpacker crowd. If they see you on the piazza, they will perform for you—impersonations of Michael Jackson and sometimes even Elvis.

Around 11PM Atrani beach turns into a slice of paradise. Little else on my journey matched sitting on the rocks there with friends under a big moon. We drank sweet white wine and stared out at the sea, watching the occasional late-night fisherman’s boat tipping gently on the glassy water.

The morning started out overcast, but reliable Amalfi Coast sun broke through by 10AM. The hike begins behind the town. A sign off a small piazza reads "Ravello steps" and points up a "scalinatella" leading out of town. We climbed the stairs out of Atrani and up into the hills.

In the hills behind the main town and waterfront is farming country: little chalets, most of them decrepit, their yards decorated with pigs, sheep, and chickens. Unplaceable bovine moaning occasionally broke the quiet. We stepped on fallen figs squashed flat under earlier foot traffic, and pressed up against a stone wall to make way for a parade of burros and their herdsman.

An hour and a half later we reached Ravello, perfectly situated for views of the coast below. Seeing Amalfi and Atrani from above were reason enough to clamber so high. From the Belvedere Principessa, a lovely little public park, we could see Minori to the south.

We bought panini and gelato and sat in the quiet, cozy central piazza to relax. Because it’s set far off the coast road, Ravello doesn’t attract the traffic that the coastline towns do. But selective travelers seek out Ravello, with its many lovely gardens, some tucked into unexpected places.

We ventured into one garden in front of a public building and caught sight of a window at the end of a long corridor which promised a spectacular view of the sea. Curious, we approached the window— and the view was indeed lovely. But we had stumbled into the Ravello police station! An officer furrowed his brow at us as we made a speedy retreat.

By the time we got back to Atrani, we were sweaty, dirty, and eager to leap into the sea. In summer heat on the Amalfi Coast, it is advisable to stay close to the water. I dove in and swam out for my favorite view: the town and its hills behind as seen from the water. To the fishermen of Atrani, it is common scenery. For centuries, they have crossed this spot, the land at their backs, bound for a fish-ful sea.

We arrived at the Grotto after 6PM. We’d been told that the tour boats would be gone after 5:00, and it was a weekday, so not many swimmers remained.

Although it’s the largest tourist attraction in the region, the Grotto is not as grand as I expected. Tour boats can’t get through the cave’s entrance, so they employ one-man rowboats to carry visitors inside. Swimmers have it easy. We rode a large wave and spilled into the Grotto.

When I opened my eyes, anticipation washed off and my senses kicked in. I was floating in phosphorescence, in a living, glowing, electric blue. As we stroked through it, our bodies glowed too, as if we were human Christmas-tree lights.

The water inside the Grotto is so clear that we could see the sandy bottom perfectly. Sunlight, reflecting off the water, danced in rays on the dome ceiling 20 feet above our heads.

Just to the left of the cave entrance is a vertical niche in the Grotto wall, well-camouflaged by shadows and surrounding crags. If you anchor your hands and feet to the ledges and hold absolutely still, you can see hundreds of fish, illuminated by the gorgeous blue, swimming past in shining schools below your feet.

We stayed in the cave for about an hour and a half, until our fingers and toes numbed and our teeth chattered. Usually we were the only ones there. People have swum in the Blue Grotto for centuries, but being inside alone feels like discovering it -- discovering a secret blue heaven.

As we approached the tiny cave opening to leave, we joked that this must be like birth—- swimming toward a bright white light from a wonderful place you don’t want to depart. Later, we were pensive at dinner. One of my friends asked, "If you close your eyes, can you get the blue back?" I could- and I still can. I can see the electric glow along the water’s surface, most brilliant where the sea laps up against the dark rock wall. I can see the dome dressed in shooting stars —- bits of sunlight bent upside down. And I can see myself, somersaulting underwater, eyes open, in the blue.