Capri makes a great day trip from the Amalfi Coast. From the port in Capri, you take a funicular up to the main town. From there, you can explore the narrow streets, and shops. Capri is a busy tourist island and on some days it can get overrun.  But even when it’s packed with tourists, it is a beautiful place and should not be missed if your traveling to Southern Italy. I’ve been to Capri twice now, and both times I was unable to see the Blue Grotto because the seas were too rough. If you’re there on a calm water day, don’t miss it.

Inhabited since the Paleolithic age, when it was still attached to the mainland, the island later became Greek, and then Roman. After visiting Capri in 29 BC, Caesar Augustus was so taken with the island's beauty that he bought it from the city of Naples, giving up the nearby island of Ischia - much larger and richer - in return.

Legend has it that his successor, Tiberius, who lived there from 27 to 37 AD, built twelve villas, dedicating them to the twelve gods of Olympus. From the most magnificent of these dwellings, the "Villa Jovis", he ruled the Roman Empire. Other emperors spent time in Capri, which was visited and inhabited by Roman nobles up through the fourth century AD. Returned to the ownership of the Duke of Naples, the island was raided by the Saracens in the sixth and seventh centuries, and was dominated during various periods in the years that followed by the Longobards, the Normans, the Angevins, the Aragonese and, finally, the Spanish.

The island experienced a period of renewed good fortune in the 17th and 18th centuries, in coincidence with the great political and artistic upsurge of Naples, and thanks to the existence of an active church diocese, as well as the privileges granted the island, first by the Spanish and then by the Bourbons.

Beginning in the second half of the 18th century, the island became a preferred destination of the Bourbons, who went there to hunt quail and some just for the island's beauty. Visitors from the North included the island in their travel plans and gave the world its first images of Capri. Unfortunately, their arrival also brought about the systematic plundering of the extensive Roman ruins, preserved almost intact throughout the centuries. As a result, a tremendously rich heritage was devastated and dispersed, so that today only a few traces remain. These are found primarily in the digs that are resumed at periodic intervals.

Starting in the first half of the last century, in the wake of the discovery of The Blue Grotto, the flow of Italian and foreign tourists began. Writers, painters, exiles, rich and eccentric visitors, from the end of the 1800's until the Second World War, chose the island as their year-round or seasonal residence, building villas and contributing to the creation of the multi-facetted, multi-lingual, cosmopolitan colony that made the name Capri famous and established the island's myth.

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The video to the left is of our passage from Positano to Capri.

The first picture below is of us just after we got off the small boat we chartered to take us the 20 miles across the channel from Positano. We were all soaking wet. The other pictures are of the shops in front of the harbor, the gateway to the funicular that takes you up to the main part of the town, and of the view from the top of the funicular.

Capri is a good day trip from the Amalfi Coast. It's even better if you plan an overnight stay, so that you can experience it when the day trippers are gone. My wife and I spent two nights there on one of our vacations, and it was very peaceful after 5:00 p.m.

The last picture of Capri below was taken from the ferry. We were able to take a regular ferry back to Positano and Amalfi. Although there were still very heavy seas, we were in a much bigger boat, and we were traveling with the swells and wind.