Mission accomplished! We ‘did’ the Blue Grotto. Seems we were lucky because it was closed for the last 3 days due to high tide; even while in rowboats waiting to get in we were told that the wait was extra long because although the tide was low enough to resume tours of the Grotto, it was still high. I just took his word for it, I have nothing to compare it to!
I have to say that the motion sickness really got to me. Not in the “big boat” while it was sailing to the Grotto, but once it stopped and bobbed in place – and also once we were in the rowboat I really felt sick! It’s 4 people per rowboat, 3 in the back and one in the front (plus the rower so 5 total) and I ended up in the back UNDER the other two!!! I am amazed I did not break a rib!
It’s not cheap. The boat that takes you out to the Grotto and meets up with the rowboat was something like 18€ and then once there, it’s another 12.50 for the Grotto entrance fee and the “tax”. ahem… yeah whatever! Seemed a little “organized wink-wink” to me.
Paying that extra 12.50 once in the rowboat was comical. You get rowed over to 3 guys in a dingy collecting money… laugh out loud silly!
We made it in relatively unscathed… although I was whacked in the head a few times by the chain the rower uses to pull the rowboat into the Grotto. You can sort of see it here in this picture: the rower is pulling along the chain – the hair on the right is the woman who was on top of my husband who was on top of me! LOL
Our pictures didn’t really turn out – hard to fiddle with the camera settings when lying down in a bobbing rowboat sandwiched between strangers!!! HA! I don’t really mind the shotty snaps, it captures the colours and that’s good enough for me! I’ll remember the rest.
Would I recommend it? Sure why not… although I am not sure that the WOW factor of seeing it in person is any better than a decent set of pictures you can find on Google (not mine obviously!) My husband said is was Hell. Squished in a boat, getting wet, sweating like a pig, spending a lot of money – he was very unimpressed and thought it was a total waste. Ah well.
After that, we had a nice lunch with a view over Capri and then took the boat back to Sorrento.
Capri seemed all new to me this time. In 2003 as part of the tour, we visited the Villa and took the chair lift up to Ana Capri so we skipped all that today and spent more time in Capri Town; it all seemed like I was seeing it for the first time.
I also made a new friend… always nice!
Back in Sorrento we decided to walk to the hotel where we stayed in 2003 to see how much of it we remembered. It was SO FAR! Walking there and back was a solid hour! In actual fact it turns out we were not even in Sorrento proper that time, but rather in Saint Angelo (or something like that). I was wondering why Sorrento seemed so new to me this time. We didn’t even realize in 2003 that Sorrento had an old town! We really missed out then – so glad we are staying in the center of town this time!
Time to call is a day. My husband has had a sore throat all day today and it’s stressing me out!!! Jesus, AGAIN?? I gave him 2 doses of Vitamin C & Echinacea and it better work!
I cant believe we are facing this AGAIN! ARGH!
