Am I Doing Capri Wrong?

Best feature of my uncle's house in Capri? It's right on the beach at Marina Piccola. So close that we could walk down in nothing but our swimsuits, go for a swim, and come back up still dripping with seawater to the balcony to sunbathe.

We did arrive on the island with shit to do. The Gardens of Augustus were definitely on the schedule. I wanted to make sure Nina and Ges got to see at least a tiny glimpse of the island because, yes, Capri is outrageously expensive, but it really is a beautiful place.

Our plans, however, quickly crumbled.

After some light grocery shopping, we decided we'd rather walk down to the house than take the bus. In theory, it was going to be a nice little stroll. A sort of prelude to Via Krupp. Yes, it was hot, but we were only going downhill. It wasn't exactly going to be an exhausting hike.

Or so we thought.

As it turns out, five minutes of direct Capri sun was enough to defeat all three of us.

I have never been so sweaty in my life. I genuinely think my body was shutting down as I tried to get the house running. Turning on the water, figuring out the electricity and getting everything ready felt like a monumental task.

That first swim after all of that felt divine. The sea had revived us, but as we all know it's also incredibly tiring, so eventually we had to recover properly. Time for lunch.

And here is where I have to mention our sick grocery shopping skills. We had calculated every meal and every drink so perfectly that by the end of the weekend we had almost nothing left. No random abandoned food in the fridge, no unnecessary waste. Ecological kings.

After some more swimming and looking at cute fish it was time to engage in our favorite activity: aperitivo.

Drinking a beer on a balcony overlooking the sea is arguably one of the best feelings in the world, right? At least I think so, and if you don't we can't be friends sorry.

It was during that balcony evening that my dad called to ask how we were enjoying Capri. I told him we were fantastic, and honestly, we were. Beach, beer, guac and nachos. What more could we want?

He then started suggesting that I should probably take the bus up to Capri, go for a walk, and explore the island a bit.

(He meant an actual walk. He knows I’m not paying €20 for a Peroni.)

I told him we had absolutely no desire to leave our little corner of paradise and that we were perfectly happy with our evening. Naturally, he and my mum proceeded to make fun of us for our “boring” Capri holiday before we hung up.

And honestly, I understand where they were coming from. Even I arrived with the “best intentions.” I wanted Nina and Ges to see Capri. I had a little mental list of things we should do because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you visit somewhere beautiful.

But then we got there, and the thing we wanted most was to swim, eat, drink, and enjoy being there. And I started wondering: why do we feel like we need to experience places in a specific way? Why does every trip come with a checklist of things we have to see and do in order for it to count?

I’m not saying we didn’t miss anything. We were in one of the most beautiful places in our country and barely left our little corner of it. There were definitely parts of the island I remembered from my childhood that I would have loved to explore again as an adult with my friends. Maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle.We didn’t need to turn Capri into a checklist, but we probably could have left our little nest at least once.

But I don’t think that means we did Capri wrong. What I liked about this trip was that it felt less like we were trying to complete Capri and more like we were simply enjoying being there. We didn’t come back with a long list of recommendations or hidden gems to share, and honestly, if someone asked me what they should do there, I’m not sure I’d have a very impressive answer beyond: “find a nice spot to swim and bring snacks.”

I think we’ll remember this weekend anyway. Not because we managed to see everything, but because it felt exactly like the kind of break we needed.