It's the Little Things That Matter: Flashback: 11-13.09.1998- Capodimonte, Capri

Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 17:01:29 +0200
Subject: Capodimonte, Capri

Hi! This has been sitting on the computer forever, and I thought I should probably finish it up and send it! (so you can forget about the comment about the snow- it's about 3 months belated at this point!) :D

Hello everybody!

I hear there's a big snowstorm belting the northeast US! Hope you get lots of sledding/skiing/building snowmen in! The weather has been fairly springish here, and I've seen some crocuses in bloom already! ...so there goes my theory that the weather is always almost identical in Albany, NY and Zürich, CH! (I was noticing that the last few times I've talked to Mom.)

But I would like to get a little closer to finishing my ever-more-drawn-out story of my trip to Italy. The last thing I told you about was the day we spent in Naples. Which I must say, that after my first impression of a smog-filled congestion, this is a city with a lot of life to it! The next day went to to top of the hill overlooking (?) the city, Capodimonte, and visited the porcelain manufacturing school there. Now that I think about it, within 2 weeks I had seen so many porcelain/ceramic manufacturing places: Meissen, near Dresden; Fabbrica Solimene in Vietri, in the big ramped building; Fornace della Cava, with the handmade tiles: and now Capodimonte! I certainly have a better understanding of what goes into the process, now!

There has been a porcellain manufacturer at Capodimonte since the 1700s, but it has only had a school there for the last 40 years. I guess it is like a trade school, where kids go instead of a regular high school. The program is 3 years. We got to see stuff that kids from all three years had made. In one room there were the final exams- they all had to make the same thing- I think it was a basket, with vines on it. It was a very detailed and very beautiful design, but when we looked closely at what the students turned in, we could see such a wide range of end results- some were so fine and delicate, some were still pretty clumsy.

This porcellain is fired three times: once for the porcellain itself, once for the glazing, and once for the detailed painting. After each step a piece becomes that much more valuable- it has been through that much more that could have potentially damaged it!

I really liked going through here- we got to ask so many questions, and really understand what they did, and it was really amazing to think that teenagers were making these pieces!

Afterwards we went to the National Museum, also at Capodimonte, and built to match the Palazzo Reale in the city. I remember the air was so fresh, and so warm, and we were standing outside in the garden in the shade of the big old trees, and the last thing I wanted to to at that point was go into another building and look at more paintings!

But once we got inside I changed my mind completely.

At first we walked through a few rooms together, saw some huge oil paintings by Titian and Raphael. They were amazingly detailed, mostly of various popes at different stages in their lives. But they were still in dark rooms, that seemed kind of stuffy. Then we had a bit of time to walk through by ourselves, before we met again outside. I went through one room that had just Michaelangelo's work, with preliminary sketches next to the finished paintings. I think I reacted the same way I did to the Greek sculptures the day before- I had never really seen Michealangelo's work up close before, and now that I was I had a completely different reaction to it! The fascination I had had with every muscle in the Toro Farnese the day before was transferred to his sketches and paintings- on a flat piece of paper or canvas, Michaelangelo had created so much life, so much dimension, to the point where I wanted to touch the canvas to feel the curves and folds he had drawn, like a sculpture! It was more exaggerated in the sketches, I thought, but the paintings had the added dimension of such rich colors, that it was softened, yet made that much more striking! I decided then that I really liked his work! I never did get very far through the museum- I was too busy looking too closely at the paintings I did see. :)

So that was our morning. In the afternoon we left Naples, left the mainland, and got on a hydrofoil to spend the next few days on Capri!!!!

The hydrofoil was a huge boat, and we all had seats inside, which reminded me of a wide-body airplane- the kind with two aisles and about 10 seats across in the middle. The windows were all really dirty, which made it hard to see out, and I was really disappointed about that- especially when they hosed down the one side, but not the other! But in a few minutes I didn't care anymore, because I realized I could go outside to the deck on the back! Which is where I spent the rest of the trip.

A hydrofoil is a really cool kind of boat- it creates this pocket of air that it rides on, so it isn't actually sitting in the water! It leaves a HUGE flat wake behind it, and it is so LOUD!

When we started off, Capri was this hazy thing off in the distance, that we couldn't see all that well.

Then as we left Naples behind it started to get bigger and more defined.

Capri is a tall rocky island that is kind of saddle-shaped: it is lower and narrower in the middle. There are essentially three towns, or at least more densely populated parts: the port, in the bigger of the two bays created by this squish in the middle; Capri, right in the center of the island, overlooking the two bays but in the valley between the two hills; and Anacapri, on top of one of these two hills.

We arrived at the port, and took a bus up a winding road past Capri, and up an even more treacherous, hairpin-turn-on-the-edge-of-a-steep-cliff-loaded road to our hotel in Anacapri. I felt like we were living in the lap of luxury there! We had the rest of the afternoon free, so most of us went swimming in the hotel's pool, before getting cleaned up for dinner in the big dining room (which looked kind of like a ballroom to me...)

The next morning we had all sorts of stuff planned- a visit to the Blue Grotto, to Villa Malaparte, etc. But by the time we got into Capri it started POURING!!! The weather forecast for the rest of the day didn't look any more promising, and since the boats to these two places weren't running due to the high waves and all, all our plans were canceled, and we had the rest of the day to ourselves.

Which was kind of disappointing- these were two things that I really wanted to see!- but at the same time, now that I look back on it, I think it worked out just fine! I think most people decided then to head back to the hotel and get out of the rain. But Matt and I both decided we wanted to explore the island- we weren't going to melt in the rain, and it wasn't that cold out, and not only that, we were on Capri!!! So that's what we did. We had started off in the marketplace of Capri, which is very well maintained, and very picturesque- densely clustered buildings of all sorts of pretty pastels, with terraces, stairs, and overflowing with flowers, and the square overflowing with outdoor cafes.

But it was so artificial, such a tourist trap- I felt like I could have been on Paradise Island of Disney World and not felt any differently.

All the storefronts were either Tiffany, expensive watches, or something else outrageously expensive; cheesy tourist shops, loaded with tacky tshirts and postcards (although this kind of stuff I saw more in the port); or of course, money exchange shops. It was all so sickeningly artificial, I was beginning to wonder where the real inhabitants lived, and if there was another center away from all the pervasive tourism. The evening before Matt and I had wandered all over the place, and never managed to get beyond the hotels and party lights.

So it was really good to have a chance to do some more exploring. This time we actually managed to get out of the tourist center and into the real residential areas. But it was so hard to do! All the streets are so narrow and walled in- in town by the buildings, on the periphery with built up rubble walls of about 2 meters (~6'-6").

And they wind around in circles until you lose all sense of direction completely, and even if you did know where you were, chances were you'd be facing in the opposite direction by the time you came to a fork in the road, at which point you'd only be able to say, ok, the road to the left looks better than the road to the right. Which is what we did- simply wandered where the streets took us. The whole thing reminded me of stories I had heard of labyrinthine Medieval city streets, that served as a means of defense- only the locals would be able to find their way through, and the invading troops would quickly become lost, wandering around in circles!

I really liked it here. The streets (paths, really), so narrow and enclosed, would have felt like alleys anywhere else. But here it was so quiet and peaceful and residential, and at such a comfortable people-scale, that they had a certain intimacy to them. Like the paths in Amalfi, I always felt like we were walking through private domain, through peoples' backyards. But at the same time, we were always on the outside, only catching glimpses of the houses and gardens through openings in the wall.

A few times our path took turns that landed us in some really cool places. Once we came to a steeper hill, where the wall stopped and the slope itself served as our boundary. We followed it as it turned to steps winding down around a bend, when suddenly our narrow view opened up to enclose a huge natural arch, springing up from the crashing waves in the teal water far far below , and towering way above us! We both stood there awestruck. How can something like this just appear so unexpectedly out of nowhere? It was so breathtaking. We were unable to take the whole thing in in a single view- there were a few openings in this rock, all of which made for the coolest views out to sea!

Then later these boundary walls on the path opened up again, only this time to the woods and fields. Eventually we were lead to an outlook at the top of the steep cliff. There, far below us, on a rocky outcropping of a peninsula, was Villa Malaparte!

This was one of the things we would have seen had the weather been more condusive. And looking down to the whitecaps and powerful crashing waves on the piece of land below, I could understand why we would have needed to go by boat, and why we couldn't today!

But we were so psyched to see it, and felt so proud to say we had managed to get there!

....AND, along the coastline far to our left was the natural arch we had discovered that morning! :)

We eventually found ourselves on top of the mountain opposite Anacapri, in a farmer's field, and decided to stop for lunch. I realized then that our adventure did have a price, or that it left its mark in my sketchbook in its own way- the book was drenched, and the edges of many pages were smeared! :( ...but I would say it was well worth it!

When we decided to head back, (a warm shower and dry clothes were starting to sound really inviting at this point) we looked for a path or something that could at least lead us in the right general direction, and ended up walking along top of a low (knee height?) rubble wall, marking off the different fields. The only reason this is still of any importance to me is that we noticed right away that this wall was made up of old broken materials that needed to be disposed of anyway- broken bricks and things, but also several beautiful glazed tiles! Some with the deepest shades of teal green, some with delicate painted patterns. We both picked up a few- we figured the farmers wouldn't mind us picking through their trash- as cool souveniers with more significance than anything we would be able to buy! I've been using mine all year as coasters, and smile everytime I set hot tea water down on them! :)

The next morning we all headed down to the port with all our luggage, to head back to the mainland.

For whatever reason, we ended up having a few free hours again, so we were determined to take full advantage of them. We hung around by the water for a while, but then Matt and I decided to go exploring again.

We set our sights on this huge staircase that zigzagged straight up a vertical cliff to the road cantilevered off it on its way to Anacapri.

It seemed kind of far off, and with the way the paths worked, here, we had no idea if we were even going ultimately in the right direction!

But we headed off, past the school and the soccer field, lots of houses, sometimes directly in the hot sun, sometimes under a canopy of vines. Somehow this path did lead us to the staircase, and out of the woods we had ended up in, it laid right there in front of us in the bright sunshine!

And it looked even more huge and daunting up close. But as we started up it, the view started growing, getting ever more and more impressive! By the time we got to the top we could see clear across the saddle of the island, covered with its dense cluster of buildings, sprawling out to the wooded terrain climbing up the rocky cliffs.

And below us the water had the most incredible range of clear shades of teal I had ever seen,

ever changing in the sunlight and shadows, its intensity fading as it stretched out towards the rugged coastline between Sorrento and Naples on the horizon!