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We left Capri a couple of days ago, bound for Palermo, Sicily. We’ll write about Palermo soon, but I wanted to post a few last pictures of Capri. Suffice it to say that I 38 years after my first visit I still really love Capri. As humans have known for millennia – literally – it’s a spectacularly beautiful place. And, as has also been the case for millennia, there are some seriously rich people there. You can do very high-end shopping there, though one of the great things about our new lifestyle is that we can’t really buy anything. To be honest, paying hundreds of dollars for a sweater or swimsuit has never had much appeal for me, but I still love not even being tempted to shop.

The one thing we couldn’t understand was the mismatch between the cost of food and the quality of food. It was weird.  Not all the food was actually bad, but some of it was and none of it was cheap. I felt like asking – rhetorically, of course – whether rich people are just stupid.

‘Nuff said on that topic.

Our last full day was spent on a l-o-n-g hike. Up – and up and up – to the town of Anacapri, with its own high-end shopping scene, then down to the lighthouse and beach at the very southwestern tip of the island. We’d considered just staying at the beach there, but because of wind and rough seas, that wasn’t really in the cards. Plan B was that we’d hike around the western end of the island, on a trail that links a bunch of small forts built during the Napoleonic wars, as France and Britain fought over Capri. Well, the rough seas made the walk even more beautiful than it might otherwise have been, though that’s sort of gilding the lily. The trail took us to the Blue Grotto, which was closed because of the heavy seas, but we’d known that would happen so it was no surprise. From there it was another long walk back to the hotel and then a boat the next day – over even rougher seas – to Naples to catch a boat to Sicily.

That was Capri. Over the course of a few days we hiked the length and breadth of the island, up and down a lot of hill. One heavenly day at the beach. Food ranging from pretty good to pretty bad. But all of it surrounded by one of the most beautiful islands on earth. Not bad.

The very southwestern tip of Capri

The rocky coast along the western edge

Upscale housing for the seriously rich

Happy Jim on the trail

A view of the eastern end of Capri, the Bay of Naples, and a peninsula just south of Sorrento from the town of Anacapri. The Amalfi Coast starts just the other side of that peninsula.