Procida And Capri – Mediterranean Lands Filled With Relaxation And Romance

THE ISLAND OF THE SEA – A 20-minute ride on a hydrofoil takes me to Procida, the smaller, sea-faring island that lies between Ischia and Naples. Procida had a brief flirtation with fame when the harbour and village scenes of the 1994 Oscar-winning film Il Postino were set here. The little port of Marina Grande is a film-maker’s dream with its brightly coloured houses – each painted in a different pastel shade so that they could be recognised from the sea by returning sailors.

There is an abundance of jaw-dropping views on this island. And the fishing village of La Corricella has an abundance of steps. The houses here are so tightly clustered together that descending a stone staircase like the Gradinata del Pennino is the only way to get to the village. Film fans might recognize its steep Via San Rocco from The Talented Air Ripley. Jude Law’s character, Dickie, rode his scooter down this street to meet up with his secret Italian girlfriend.

Tiny, volcanic Procida has an abundance of drama. Tales of shipwrecks and pirates abound and the little museum in the Abbey of San Michele Arcangelo in Terra Fermata has several paintings done by sailors grateful for rescue. Terra Fermata itself is the island’s fortress – a sombre medieval village clinging to the edge of the island.But Procida also has a peaceful cosiness probably best experienced at the smallest of the island’s three marinas, at Chiaiolella. A meal of fresh fish at the hotel and restaurant Crescenzo, right on the port, finished off with a limoncello liqueur is a perfect Procida evening.

On the subject of food, Procida produces lemons the size of grapefruit that have a sweetness to them that is the base of their lemon salad, made with garlic, mint, chilies and olive oil. La Pergola restaurant, up in a romantic lemon grove at 10 Via Salete, is probably the best place to go, even though you risk having the occasional lemon landing on your head.

THE ISLAND OF THE SKY – A visitor landing on Capri after visiting hard-working, understated Procida would be forgiven for thinking, after a stroll through the piazzetta, that this island’s main exports are hedonism and handbags. The island has always gone in for old-fashioned glamour in spades. Grace Kelly, Greta Garbo, Jackie Onassis, Clark Gable, Sophia Loren, Faye Dunaway – all names from a more elegant time, all favoured Capri as a destination. I like to think that if green Ischia is an island of the earth and blue Procida is an island of the sea, then Capri, rising so abruptly out of the Mediterranean, is an island of the sky.

After all, every traveller in the know tells a first-time visitor to go up. Go up to Anacapri, the quieter, more exclusive part of Capri high above Marina Grande and its crowds of day-trippers. Follow paths lined with bougainvillea to go up to the white-pillared Villa San Michele, former home of the author Axel Munthe. Go up to gaze back at the stunning views of brooding Vesuvius on the mainland.

Little, open-topped Fiats with candy-striped canopies used to take visitors up in Capri. Alas, most of these have disappeared, to be replaced by seven-seater limos, also with candy-stripes but nowhere near as charming. And on a busy summer’s day when the ferry has just disgorged hundreds of visitors, it might be tempting to draw a parallel with the island’s past and present glamour.

But stay on after the last ferry has left and old Capri still lingers. And I mean old Capri. Roman Emperor Tiberius abandoned Rome for years at a time to get up to all sorts of decadent shenanigans at the Villa Jovis, the ruins of which can be visited in a 40-minute walk from Piazza Umberto. There is still quite a bit of the villa to see in its precarious location at the end of a cliff. And yes, Tiberius did throw discarded lovers into the sea.

The real pleasures of old Capri don’t and can’t change. The Faraglioni rocks still jut out as dramatically from the sea as they did in Tiberius’s time. The Blue Grotto will always have a traffic jam of rowing boats vying to get in to its sparkling turquoise interior. One of the simplest pleasures remains lunch in a cliff-side restaurant almost tipping into the sea. Try the Grotto Azzurra above the Blue Grotto.Somerset Maugham wrote a short story, The Lotus Eater, that told of an Englishman so beguiled by the island’s beauty that he left his sensible London life to wander in a state of minor madness among the lemon groves and jasmine gardens of Capri. On a quiet evening in Anacapri, it’s easy to see why.