July 11-13
With just two full days in Capri, and almost zero research done by us regarding this small island, we were super lucky to be meeting up with Leigh, his partner Craig, and Leigh’s daughter Mietta. Thankfully, they had things under control.
When we woke up on the 11th, after our travel day, we met up with them for breakfast to get our day started. Most of you will remember Leigh from our Antarctica expedition. He was the Australian that we met and with whom we spent most of our time. We think he’s great. So when he mentioned that he was going to be in Capri with his family, and asked if we’d be around, we shuffled our schedule a bit and decided to end our time in Europe with them in Capri. It did not disappoint.
First off, both Craig and Mietta are as great as Leigh is. No surprise there! They welcomed us into the group immediately and it truly felt like we were all good, old friends.
For our first day, Craig organized a boat trip with another Aussie couple. A little before one, we met up with Guy and Madeleine and their kids, Aston and Coco, at the harbor.
Knowing Leigh, and now getting to know Craig and Mietta, it is no surprise that this little family is also amazing!
We spent the next four or so hours boating around the island, checking out the grottos, swimming and just enjoying being out on the water with a little rose. Aston can tell you exactly how many bottles Craig brought on the boat if you’re wondering.
We also drove right through Faraglioni, Capri’s most iconic sight, which are coastal rock formations eroded by waves.
And we saw this famous house, Casa Malaparte, which is on the eastern side of the island and was built 70 years ago. The 45ish degree angle facing the cliffs are steps that climb up the side of the house to the roof-top patio. It was also the location of a Brigitte Bardot movie, Le Mépris, in 1963.
And, of course, the grottos! I love the contrasting colors here – the purple and the really striking blues.
After retreating to our hotels for showers and quick naps, we all met back up in the center square to watch the World Cup game: England vs. Croatia.
We had a great time – with most of the area rooting for England and just little old me and a few others pulling for Croatia. Perhaps no bigger England fan that Leigh… sporting a jersey with his own name put on the back.
In a shock to probably everyone there, Croatia actually won. Leigh is now on to supporting France. Not so much a spoiler, because at the time of writing this, the World Cup is over, but I’ve seen facebook and Leigh also has a French jersey. No way of knowing if it has his name on the back. But at least Leigh finally got his victory!
As the game was finishing up, a few bizarre things happened.
First of all, while I stepped away from the table to chat on the phone with my mom for a few minutes, a random woman came over to the table to chat with our group. Coco and Guy had already headed back to the hotel, but the rest of the crew was still there. She was young, quite drunk and looking to party… with our crew which included a nine year old. Craig was immediately trying to get a little distance from the woman and I think everyone had some concerns about hanging out with her. But she ordered shots and everyone felt a bit obligated to sit with her for a minute.
By this time, Michael is waving wildly at me to come back. At the time, I thought he was just annoyed that I was being rude by staying on the phone. It turns out he wanted me to come back and help manage the Chelsea from Chelsea situation. That’s right, her name was Chelsea and she was from Chelsea (in England, not in NYC). Chelsea from Chelsea seemed to be full of stories with questionable amounts of truthfulness. First of all, she is David Beckham’s stylist. She told them that she had been coming to Capri for 20 years, but she was only 27 years old. Chelsea from Chelsea wanted to take our crew to a jazz club that she just loves. She had a story about how she also has a boyfriend, or someone with her, who had left her at the restaurant to watch the game by herself. Plus everyone knows her because she comes there all the time. Whatever the story, our crew was nervous that she was trying to stick us with her bill. I finally finished my call and walked back to the group.
At this point, I approach our guys to see what was going on. Craig was trying desperately to find an exit strategy away from Chelsea from Chelsea. I’m not sure why we didn’t think we could just walk away, but I think there was concern that there would be a scene. So in a panicked fashion, Craig was throwing out ideas when Michael and Leigh made eye contact and Leigh said excitedly, “It’s Rod Stewart!”
Suddenly, the Chelsea from Chelsea issue was of zero concern. We had a new purpose in life and that was following a rough looking, definitely drunk Rod Stewart down the street. As we all started walking, Chelsea from Chelsea starting coming with us but was stopped by restaurant staff demanding that she pay her bill. She made some comment about it not being a problem and that she was going to “dial Rod” because she knows him and then she started manically pounding on her phone like she was dialing his number from memory.
That was the last we saw of Chelsea from Chelsea.
Madeleine took this as her opportunity to take Astor back to their hotel and the rest of us followed Rod and his entourage up the road to their waiting taxis. Once Rod was settled into a taxi, Leigh came up next to him and said, “you’ve got Bette Davis eyes” and Rod said, “I like that” and shook his hand before riding off.
We were pretty geeked about it. Leigh is now practically famous. I wouldn’t really even say I’m a Rod Stewart fan, but I was pumped to see him!
The next day, we did the fashionable thing to do in Capri and got reservations to a beach club for the day.
This is the view from our hotel window along with a few other shots from the hotel below:
These are from our walk to the beach club.
Since Capri is quite rocky, these clubs have lounge chairs, restaurants and swimming areas. There are varying degrees of exclusivity at these clubs. The one we went to was mildly exclusive and situated right next to the super exclusive club where Chelsea from Chelsea and her good friend Rod were probably hanging out.
We had a great time – got a lot of swimming in and met a few more friends of Leigh and Craig. They were a family were staying nearby and had chartered a sailboat for the day and just sailed right up to our club to have lunch with us. Apparently Capri is quite the place to visit if it is winter in Australia!
Here, Aston and I are watching one seagull eat another seagull. Gross? Yes. But really hard to look away.
Our ride back from the beach club:
And an extra taxi once we realized the boat dropped us off at the wrong harbor. Whoops!
That night, with a slightly smaller group, we grabbed a fancy dinner at Monzu which served beautiful local cuisine. This photo is courtesy of another breathtaking walk to the restaurant. Definitely should be in a fashion magazine…
The meal was wonderful and the wine provided by Claudio was excellent, but the conversation was truly the best part of the night.
The beautiful Mietta!
Oh – and those fireworks over the water that Michael had planned for us? Nailed it.
After two great days meeting new friends and spending time in such a beautiful place, it was hard to find anything that could make this visit better. And then we walked back to town. After dropping Madeleine off at her hotel, the five of us continued back through the center square. While passing the restaurant where we watched the World Cup the night before, we saw… Bono. True story. Bono was there, being introduced to a table of people by the owner.
It did not take long for word to spread that Bono was there and a crowd started forming. Both Leigh and Michael got selfies with the legend.
My favorite part was seeing Bono. My second favorite part was all of young, beautiful, stylishly dressed women who knew he was famous and had no clue who he was. Two 20 somethings asked us who he was. Michael responded, “Bono” and when I saw this didn’t clear anything up for them, I said, “from the band U2?” Still dead stares. So I told them to take the picture and google U2 later. There was a similar situation with two dads who were 50ish and their daughters. The dads were completely freaking out and their daughters were bored and confused.
What was cool about the situation is that Bono was a really good sport about all of it. He posed for a ton of pictures and didn’t mind being crowded. Eventually, someone did come over to save him, but he put up with it for 5 or 10 good minutes before heading to his car.
Awesome.
So that was it! Michael and I were on the 5:50 ferry back to the mainland to catch a flight out to Athens the next morning before heading on to Georgia.
We got to end our time in Capri with a sunrise over the harbor – really full circle from the sunset when we arrived.
This was definitely an excellent place to have our last stop in Europe for this trip. We loved spending time with our good buddy, Leigh, and felt so lucky to have been invited to share part of his vacation with his amazing daughter, Mietta, and wonderful partner, Craig. Plus spending time with Guy, Madeleine and their kids was a total bonus. We have a bunch of really cool kids that we love back in the States that we’ve been missing a lot lately, so it was a treat to have a little more time with some awesome kids while traveling. Thanks for including us in your incredible holiday! We hope to see you all soon in Australia!