A DREAM REALIZED

Southland Times, Issue 22993, 12 September 1936, Page 15

A DREAM REALIZED

The Island Of Capri

(Specially Written for The Southland Times.')

(BY

JENNY B. RODGER.)

While staying in Naples, we visited Capri and realized one of my dreams. We were two hours crossing to Sorrento in a luxurious little pleasure steamer, complete with palm court and jazz band, but we were so interested in our fellow passengers that the time passed too quickly. They appeared to be as interested in us and we wished we could understand as much of their language as they could of ours. It is astonishing the number of foreigners who speak English, especially the Germans and the Italians. I was sitting next to Italians with French and Americans alongside, and opposite was a Danish mother, travelling with, and educating at the same time, her family of two daughters and one son, all hatless and with the brown faces and very fair hair typical of their race. We sailed round the famous Blue Grotto or La Grotta Azzurra, as the Italians call it, only to find that the sea was too rough for us to attempt going in. Our intense disappointment was shared by the disgruntled boatmen, who were all bobbing about on the choppy sea in their little rowing boats. Romano, our guide, told us that only the day before two German women had been swept overboard while trying to negotiate the opening and that until the sea was calmer, the captain would run no risks. The opening leading to the grotto is only four feet high when the sea is calm. We waited hopefully for half an hour, but in the end had to sail round to Capri. Riot of Colour. I’ll never forget the thrill of landing there, nor the wonderful riot of colour. Fiacres—the open horse carriages rather like the phaetons of Queen Victoria’s day, were drawn up alongside the wharf and each horse had three brilliant ostrich feathers fixed to its forehead. We ignored these fiacres though and made our way to the funicular—a funny little electric train with two red carriages—and started to ascend the steepest slopes. All the way we exclaimed at the vineyards with their orange and lemon trees in blossom and bearing fruit at the same time, and at the flowers. The old rose Judas trees, acacias and fairylike almond blossom made such wonderful splashes of colour, but loveliest of all was the wistaria which hung in cascades of misty lavender from practically every balcony and wall. The houses themselves were most attractive in design and were washed in white oi’ pastel shades of yellow and pink and nearly all had shutters of apple or jade green or powder blue. The cultivation is so intense in Capri that a half acre section as most of us have in New Zealand, would be considered quite a large fruit and flower farm. The Italians have ingenious

cooking. “My wife,” he writes, “is the most lovable woman any man could meet, good looking too—but she can’t cook.” It is to be feared that “Sufferer,” and his fellow sufferers are themselves largely to blame for their woes, for if they are anxious to have a wife who can cook well, they should make it their business to find out the extent of a young woman’s culinary powers before proposing marriage—or can it be that they are so infatuated that they allow somewhat tasteless cabbages, potatoes and carrots to take on the flavour of “angels food?” Of course, even that precaution is not always infallible, there was one young man who, not so many years ago, became engaged to and subsequently married, an attractive young miss whose cooking appealed to him greatly—and after his marriage he found out that his wife’s younger sister had made all the tempting dishes that had made him think that the object of his affections was so much superior to many of her sex.

ways of utilizing every inch of space. They plant poplar trees at regular intervals, and with the aid of cord or wire, train the grape vines to grow to a great height. On the ground left they grow their flowers and vegetables. Mine Hostess. We left the funicular at a concrete courtyard, and looked away down on the houses and picturesque fishing boats below, then wound our way, still further upwards, along the loveliest little narrow streets, like passages, till we came to the Regina, a most attractive restaurant with a charming hostess who spoke five languages fluently and who had had an Australian governess in her youth. We chose to have our lunch under a straw-covered shelter down her vineyard. The food was most appetizing and always served on gleaming silver salvers. She opened a bottle of her own wine in our honour because we lived near Australia. After lunch, Romano took us high up to a marble platform to let us look down on the jagged rocks so typical of Capri, and I’ll never, never forget the intense turquoise blue of the sea, nor the royal blue shadow under the rocks. Until then I had always thought the postcards one sees of Capri grossly exaggerated. Once again we went down the most fascinating, narrow, winding streets, this time full of shops and _ stalls, stocked with coral beads, mosaic and leather work, and I am afraid I was always being left behind and had to run to catch up with the party. An Alarming Road. We boarded a large motor bus and went up what looked the most alarming road in the world, to the very top of Anacapri, which is a huge, high rock. This road, Via Krupp by name, goes up a sheer face of rock, in a series of amazing hair-pin bends and has to be seen to be believed. The sides of the road are of concrete like the road and are about two feet high. , We climbed right up to Dr Munthes house and were shown through it and through the Church of San Michele. It was all intensely interesting, but we were amazed to find that Dr Munthe is not liked by the people of Capri, who think he wrote his famous book for his own glorification only. He seldom stays there now. I fed the hundred years’ old tortoise with yellow jasmine flowers, and his way of saying “thank you” was to bite my finger. We went back to the boat, by the same hair-raising road and sailed back to the beautiful Bay of Naples on a calm sea, lit by the setting sun. Vesuvius was smouldering . away on our right and every few minutes a tongue of flame leapt upwards. We shall never forget our visit to Capri. It was one of the perfect days ox our trip.