TRAVEL THERE: AMERICANS BEWARE
You can say what you wish about Ugly Americans, but when it comes to waiting our turn, we look a whole lot better than the rest of the world. The funiculare ride on Capri proved this point in spades.
The Final Rigamarole
So we’ve battled the buffet crowds for our breakfast, played the shore excursion group game with the cruise director’s crew, stomped across a port area to get to the ferries, waited to board the ferries, boarded, lived through a vomit fest and now we’ve arrived at the Isle of Capri. Can we please start having fun, yet? Actually, not quite yet.
As I planned the trip, a jet foil to a beautiful island and a funicular ride to the top of a hill sounded quite fun. Perhaps you can tell we aren’t exactly having the times of our life. We filed off the ferry and followed the crowd to the entrance of the funicular. Like good little Americans, we lined up behind the people who were already there, leaving a little American space between ourselves and other people.
We were enjoying chatting among ourselves and had not really noticed that all that American space between us had been eaten up and we were being edged out of our place. This is where our guide began to show his superiority over other guides. Without him, we might have spent the whole day waiting to go up the hill. He started shouting and actually shoving to protect our place in line. He walked up and down monitoring the position of his charges and threatening the entire crowd were they to infringe upon our place in the line.
So, my word of warning is this, if any Americans try to take this funicular up to the city of Capri, throw all your American politeness to the wind and bring out your elbows. Otherwise, you’ll spend the day at the Marina Grande and never make it to the Piazza Umberto. It’s either that or have Paolo as a guide and the odds of that are pretty small.
At the Top of the Hill
Eventually, we made our way to the front of the line and took the short ride to the top of the hill. In Piazza Umberto, Paolo rounded us up and headed across the town at a pretty quick pace. The small city was beyond crowded. I felt as if I should be holding on to a rope like children on a field trip, lest one of us got lost.
A blogging friend of mine did not recommend Capri. He said there was nothing to see. I tend to disagree with him, but the crowds do make it difficult to see what there actually is to see. All I could think of was how wonderful it must be when the tourists go home. Maybe someday I will go spend several days on the island, but from a few prices I saw in the windows of the lovely shops, you’d need some pretty deep pockets to afford to enjoy yourself.
Beyond enjoying the cafes and shopping, there was really only one attraction I could find in Capri Town and that was Giardini di Augusto. I had no idea whether this was where we were headed or not. I was less stressed out about it than I might have been in previous years. Having GPS on your phone is a blessing. Should we get lost we could find our way to the funicular and if we weren’t headed to the garden then I already had it loaded in my Trip Advisor app. We were promised some free time after our tour and the garden sounded worth it to me.
So come back next week and find out if we made it to the Augustus Garden.
As we entered the area for boarding the ferry, Bill revealed he didn’t have his Dramamine. He said he didn’t realize we were going on a boat ride. Hadn’t we sat there in Montreal’s airport bar and discussed just that thing. Hadn’t he been the one who listed off all the forms of transportation we’d be taking for the tour? Not much we could do at this juncture.
