A Tale of Two Islands: A Tour of Capri and Procida

A Tale of Two Islands: A Tour of Capri and Procida

By the time the aperitif arrived, the Capri sun was dipping into the orange band that sprinkled the Bay of Naples, and a couple on the terrace were talking about how quiet the island had become. The hotel was empty, and the bartender in an elegant suit and tie interrupted his nostalgia for the pre-pandemic feasting and drinking, and waved away a seagull, which could no longer enjoy the feast left by tourists' leftovers.

"These birds," said the bartender, "are starving."

After more than a year of lockdown, the Italian islands off the Bay of Naples are also eager for tourists and the return of the high summer season, their economic lifeblood. Glamorous Capri, Italy's version of the futuristic world of luxury and fantasy, and its smaller, more modest sister island, Procida, drifting into the sea as if part of Naples, became Italy's first fully vaccinated in May islands. Prime Minister Mario Draghi encouraged tourists to "book their holidays to Italy".

These tourists may indeed have a rare, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and fewer crowds, better weather, and more gracious hospitality from vaccinated people will make their memories unforgettable. Come to the island now, you can wake up those long-sleeping, fully restored beauties, which are already brewing and blooming, full of expectations for the future.

But what to expect from the two islands is quite different. Capri's luxury restaurant and hotel owners are eager for a return to VIP normalcy, while some residents are hoping for a brief break from cruise ships and a renewed appreciation for the island's biodiversity and local culture. In Procida, the pastel-colored 17th-century fishing village has been used as a filming location for movies such as "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and "Il Postino" to show the beauty of Italy. Cautiously optimistic, their island will be among the high-end tourist destinations in southern Italy thanks to vaccinations and the unexpected being named Italy's Capital of Culture in 2022.

longing for authentic experience

Despite having traveled to almost every corner of Italy over the years, I have never been to either of these islands. Capri's reputation for crowds and chaos scares me away. I haven't paid attention to Procida because of the bigger Ischia next to it. But their lack of COVID-19, their proximity to my home in Rome, and the need to relax after a tough year all suggested that it was time to go.On our first evening in Capri, my wife and I strolled along winding bougainvillea-scented lanes, without luxury shoppers or rowdy crowds finishing off their limoncello. We nervously watch all the restaurants with their doors closed and the clocks on our phones. At the time, the island and all of Italy were still under a curfew after 10pm. Like the seagulls, we're hungry.

In the center of town, we followed the sound of the street corner to the Hangout bar . In the bar, locals chat about school problems and children run around. We begrudgingly order burgers, then, like characters in a Patricia Highsmith novel, meet friends from Rome whose romantic getaway turns into a soul-crushing experience: He cared more about her or his sailboat. Then their friend — the son of an Italian diplomat who had spent decades summering at the family villa in Capri — and his wife’s relationship turned a corner. We immediately became a small group.

“The resuscitated Capri has changed, it has become stronger,” Lorenzo Fornari, who knows the place intimately, explained to me. He speaks with gusto of the Zagara orange blossoms that grow on the island's towering Mount Solaro, and which he uses to flavor Solaro , a gin he started crafting with local farmers.

A few days later, I visited his terraced garden, which was filled with kiwis, figs, lemons (he plucked one from a tree to explain the topography of the island), wild fennel and even banana leaves.

"I swear," he said. "Anything can grow on this island." A batch of test wine had just arrived from the winery, and before the final tasting, he put a sprig of rosemary in the glass. He acknowledged the booze, saying Capri needs more sustainable projects like this, and how he's working with local artisans and farmers' cooperatives in Anacapri, one of the larger islands of Capri. The wider, less trendy area, he says, has "a lot to see".

I took an expensive taxi fare across the island to Anacapri, and a group of elementary school students in school uniforms were saying "Enjoy yourselves" to people eating lunch in the courtyard of the Gelsomina restaurant, the first restaurant on the island. At one of the restaurants famous for Capri ravioli, garden tomatoes add sweetness to this cheese-filled pasta dish. "We all want the Americans to come back," said his sister, Gelsomina Maresca, as the waiter explained to the only group of tourists how crowded the island used to be. Say. Her mother is cutting baby artichokes in the kitchen. "Anacapri is getting more and more famous, but we want it never to be like Capri. That's too commercial. We're the real ones."

Of course, everyone's understanding of "authentic" is different. Others, who live in the island's trendy center, believe that tourism and hospitality have run in Capri's blood since the reign of Emperor Tiberius in 2000, no matter how much natural beauty there is. , there is never a shortage of high-rollers here.

“It was a pleasure to hear from you,” Nicolino Morgano, 64 , owner of the luxury boutique hotel Scalinatella , said into the phone at the front desk. He promised the returning customer that he would reserve h

er usual room and provide her with impeccable service. He told the woman on the phone that Capri was "ready for her to experience the same sensual experiences as ever."

"People keep calling and saying they're coming, 'I'm going to book my old table,'" said Francesco De Angelis, 55, whose home is Is the owner of the famous La Capannina restaurant. In the days leading up to reopening, four generations of the vaccinated family sat in the quiet restaurant, surrounded by clean glasses and pictures of celebrity patrons like Dustin Hoffman, who Stories of other celebrities who patronized before Hoffman, including Michael Douglas and Kirk Douglas, are also told. They could feel the energy in Capri returning.

"It's just joy, joy, joy," De Angelis said.

"The Year of Rebirth"

Procida is a low-altitude volcanic island with an area of ​​about four square kilometers and a population of only 10,000. The Italian Ministry of Culture chose it as the cultural capital in 2022 with the intention of promoting recovery. Procida will “accompany us in this year of rebirth,” the culture minister said in announcing the decision, and Procida’s mayor, Raimondo Ambrosino, told me that it brings “ A burst of jubilation."

Ambrosino, who played a part in "The Talented Ripley," said that as Italy's first fully vaccinated island, Procida has planned an intensive schedule of cultural activities, including the "remodeling of abandoned sites." ". The abandoned 16th-century Palazzo D'Avalos was turned into a prison in 1830, housing some of Italy's most serious criminals before closing in 1988, and then a cultural center. An old lighthouse can be converted into a museum introducing the surrounding marine life. The Abbazia San Michele Arcangelo, where the town of Terra Murata on the northern tip of the island is surrounded by old medieval walls, displays a nativity made of shells The scene can also be repaired here.

But he said in reality they had no intention of making any drastic changes.

“We don’t need to do anything new,” Ambrosino said, leaning against a window overlooking the sea in the dilapidated city hall. National attention, government funding and more tourist revenue might be enough to renovate many of the island's wrecked buildings into new Airbnb properties, but people here don't have any appetite for luxury hotel complexes, he said. "They tried to build it once," he said. "It turned out to be very bad."

If Capri is just a little bit deserted, Procida is full of decay. But its dilapidation has a Havana-style romance, such as the rotten plaster statue covered by dust nets on the altar or the dusty seat in the church, the old woman with her forearms folded on the window and staring at the sea motionlessly, The gray mottles left by the pastel façade are like a Rorschach inkblot psychological test, testing which side of Italy you see here. Is it decadent or real? Should it move forward, or stay at all costs?

Procida herself seemed unsure. The mayor acknowledged that the cultural capital accolade would attract more tourists, but said the ferries that would bring them were the only ones that would bring them, and that they had nominated themselves to preserve the status quo, to "tell the younger generation about our past so they Only then will I realize that I still have a future.”

He sees Procida's past, present and future as the true story of a seafaring people whose descendants, like their ancestors for centuries, became fishermen and captains of pleasure and merchant ships. After long and lucrative years at sea, they would return to lush, regal gardens, scented with lemon trees, planted by their sailor ancestors to yield citrus fruit Help them fend off scurvy at sea. But now, residents like to plant orange and almond trees, datura and gorse. On the island, they roamed carefree, dangerous streets with no sidewalks, Vespa scooters with fat drivers, small Ape trucks sporting concrete, and hundreds of people whizzing past. Electric bicycles, which have small seats for children or to store groceries, have become the preferred means of transportation.

“In terms of impact,” Ambrosino said, “Cultural Capital has exposed us to so many people.”

The last thing locals want is to clog the streets with hordes of tourists flocking to discos, bars and luxury boutiques. Let's hope no one suggested they set up a tourist trap selling coffee. "They want to be customers. So the pace of life here is like this. No one is in a rush."