With TUI safely tied up at the small marina in Sorrento, I left with Karins family to take a small ferry across to Capri to explore it. The day was very different to when we last were here and there were no signs of bomb cyclones or storms. It was a little rough on the ferry getting across and there were a lot of people on it, but it was interesting watching the people as well as the rising cliffs of Capri as we approached the island.
Luckily we had tickets for the Funicolar Tram to get to the top of the island. Arriving at the top we seemed to be on a different planet to the bottom where the ferries came in. At the bottom, the nitty gritty or moving boats and people with a smattering of pizza shops and T-Shirt shops. At the top on the main street ‘V. Vittorio Emanuele III’ it was almost like a Disneyland retail theme park. Every fashion designer and ‘haute’ boutique had to have a store front up there. Every building was competing for retail frontage more than their neighbor. Every plant in a pot outside each establishment I am sure had a 5 person trauma team to respond it when any leaf fell. Very bizarre. Very overdone. Very staged almost to the point of being fake. But … people loved it! It was so packed so busy, golf carts shepherding the masses here and there. Air conditioned doors constantly shooshing open and close while the sound of cash registers kept ringing over the babble of voices. There is a reason that these designer stores existed here … they were the calling cards for those who served the well heeled customers from the super yachts parked on the southern shore.
While it was an eyeopener, it wasnt a place I wanted to push my shoes in the front doors and pull my wallet out. One visit was quite enough.
We continued across the top saddle of the island and walked on small paths across to a great restaurant on the south eastern end of the island down on the waters edge. ‘La Fontelina’. Great food, great atmosphere and great for people watching. The table beside us (no kidding) had three Italian families from the US east coast all dressed to ‘the nines’ looking like Versace mobsters. Seriously. Bright and blingy seemed to be the memo of the day. LOL.
A quick hike back to the top and tram ride to the bottom found us ready to board the ferry for our return to Sorrento.
A Commercial Disneyland?
Capri pants were introduced by fashion designer Sonja de Lennart in 1948, and were popularized by her and English couturier Bunny Roger. The name of the pants is derived from the Italian isle of Capri, where they rose to popularity in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Jackie Kennedy after becoming Jackie Onassis, the wife of the richest man of the world, escaped to Capri on many occasion. She regularly went there, alone or with her new husband or her two children, or in the company of the jet set, wearing her white capri pants and custom made Capri sandals. All of these visits were fodder for the paparazzi and thus cemented the styles she wore in the minds of the fashion conscious of the day.
