Anacapri

The late change in weather, Tuesday, carried over to Wednesday - it was a spectacular day! Warm, but not too warm, low humidity, gentle breeze - but the sea was still too rough for the Blue Grotto boats. It's beginning to look like we may not get to the island's signature attraction.

Capri has just two "cities", Capri and Anacapri. Since we've pretty well explored Capri, we took a cab to Anacapri. There is only one road that winds its' way up the mountain and the traffic is heavy. Like the roads I've described previously, this one is also narrow, with lots of hairpin curves. Most of the traffic is cabs, buses and motorbikes, but occasionally there are large trucks, that are almost as wide as the road. This requires cooperation and maneuvering between the drivers and brings the four-wheeled vehicles to nearly a halt, as they use every bit of available space to inch past one another. The motorbikes, on the other hand, especially those driven by islanders, will make use of the narrowest openings, to zip through and be on their way.

Anacapri is a smaller version of Capri, filled with the usual shops and awash in tourists - even on a Wednesday. One of its' attractions is a chair lift which, for seven Euros, takes you to the top of the mountain and affords a spectacular view of the island. Jane has a well established fear of heights, but to my surprise, she agreed to make the trip. The chairs accommodate just one person, are made of wood and have a not-very-sturdy hinged bar, with no locking mechanism, that drops in front of you. This attraction would not exist in the U.S.! OSHA would have a field day! But, in fact, it's quite serviceable and has a steady stream of clientele. The trip takes 12 minutes (Jane says 13 - she was counting the seconds) and gives you a birds-eye-view of the terracing that the residents use to squeeze every bit of agricultural capability out of this steep and rocky terrain.

As you pass overhead, you see vineyards, fig trees, vegetable gardens, lemon trees and the occasional shrine to a favorite saint. At the lower elevations, the chairs pass within a few yards, sometimes a few feet, of front doors, back windows, back yards, etc. I couldn't help but wonder how the residents feel about this close scrutiny of their lives by the thousands of strangers that pass each day. But the few residents I saw completely ignored the chairs, so I'm left to imagine that the intrusion on their lives is an acceptable trade-off for the economic advantage that the lift helps bring to the area.

When we reached the top, Jane was visibly shaking from the adrenalin rush of managing her fear and she would venture no closer than several yards from the railing that separated people from the near-vertical drop down the cliff face, to the sea. That was a view she did not savor. But I was really quite proud of her - I didn't expect her to make the trip, at all. We went to the open air cafe and enjoyed a beer and chatted with a few Americans we encountered - all of whom wanted to know if I knew the weekend college football scores (i.e., did Michigan lose again - YES!)

On the way back down, I was treated to a unique sight. An elderly local was riding the chair to the top, with a medium sized dog standing on his lap. Both the man and the dog seemed quite comfortable with this arrangement; clearly, they'd done it before. I grabbed one of my cameras and fired off several photographs as the pair approached. When we passed, he called out, "grazie", and I thanked him in return. In the States, this never would have been permitted, but here in Italy, I've had several occasions to witness that people are much less concerned with form, than they are with function. They take responsibility for their own actions and are not looking for an all-encompassing umbrella of safety to be cast about them by some government fiat.

A good example of this is one of the island's busiest intersections. The road from Marina Grande, the road from Anacapri and the road from Marina Piccolo all merge at a traffic roundabout into a single road that continues into Capri. There is a traffic cop stationed at the roundabout, but he/she stands off to the side and lets the drivers work out the merging. There are stop and yield signs on two of the roads, but these are universally ignored. Cars, motorbikes and the electric trucks are often two or more abreast - sometimes horns blow and occasionally, "greetings" are exchanged, but traffic flows and everyone gets where they're going, without intervention or input from the cop. If government, in the from of the cop, got involved, it would just slow things to a crawl! Ring any bells?