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Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy. It has been a resort since the time of the Roman Republic. Features of the island are the Marina Piccola (the little harbour), the Belvedere of Tragara, which is a high panoramic promenade lined with villas, the limestone crags called sea stacks that project above the sea (the Faraglioni), Anacapri, the Blue Grotto (Grotta Azzurra), and the ruins of the Imperial Roman villas. Capri is part of the region of Campania, Province of Naples. The town of Capri is the main centre of population on the island. It has two harbours, Marina Piccola and Marina Grande (the main port of the island). The separate commune of Anacapri is located high on the hills to the west. The etymology of the name Capri can be traced back to the Greeks, the first recorded colonists to populate the island. This means that "Capri" was probably not derived from the Latin "Capreae" (goats), but rather the Greek "Kapros" (wild boar).


Tourism

Capri is a tourist destination for both Italians and foreigners. In the 1950s, Capri became a popular destination. In summer, the island is heavily visited by tourists, especially by day trippers from Naples and Sorrento.


Main sights

The Villa San Michele was built around the turn of the 20th century by the Swedish physician, Axel Munthe, on the ruins of the Roman Emperor Tiberius's villa, on the Isle of Capri, Italy. Its gardens have panoramic views of Capri town and its marina, the Sorrentine Peninsula and Mount Vesuvius. The villa and its grounds sit on a ledge at the top of the Phoenician Steps, between Anacapri and Capri, at 327 meters above sea level. San Michele's gardens are adorned with numerous relics and works of art dating from ancient Egypt and other periods of antiquity. They now form part of the Grandi Giardini Italiani. The story of the villa is recorded by Dr. Munthe in his book entitled The Story of San Michele, published in 1929. There have been numerous reprints since. In 1919–1920, Munthe was an unwilling landlord to the outrageous socialite and muse Luisa Casati, who took possession of Villa San Michele. This was described by Scottish author Compton Mackenzie in his diaries.

Villa Lysis — initially called La Gloriette, today also known as Villa Fersen — is a villa on Capri built by industrialist and poet Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen in 1905. "Dedicated to the youth of love" (dédiée à la jeunesse d'amour), it was Fersen's self-chosen exile from France after a sex scandal involving Parisian schoolboys and nude (or nearly nude) tableaux vivants. Architecturally, the house is mainly Art Nouveau with many Neoclassical elements, the style might be called "Neoclassical decadent." The well-known Latin inscription above the front steps (AMORI ET DOLORI SACRVM, "a shrine to love and sorrow") highlights Fersen's Romantic view of himself. "Lysis" is a reference to the Socratic dialogue Lysis discussing friendship, and by our modern notion, homosexual love.

Villa Jovis ("Villa of Jupiter"; also Villa Iovis, sometimes misspelled Villa Ionis) is a Roman palace on Capri, built by emperor Tiberius who ruled from there between AD 27 and AD 37. It is the largest of the twelve Tiberian villas on Capri mentioned by Tacitus and the entire complex, spanning several terraces and a difference in elevation of about 40 m, covers some 7,000 m² (1.7 acres). While the remaining eight levels of walls and staircases only hint at the grandeur the building must have had in its time, recent reconstructions have shown the villa to be a remarkable testament to first-century Roman architecture.

Via Krupp is a historic switchback paved footpath on the island of Capri, connecting the Charterhouse of San Giacomo and the Gardens of Augustus area with Marina Piccola. Commissioned by German industrialist Friedrich Alfred Krupp, the path covers an elevation difference of about 100 m.

The Blue Grotto (Italian: Grotta Azzurra) is a noted sea cave on the coast of the island of Capri. Sunlight, passing through an underwater cavity and shining through the seawater, creates a blue reflection that illuminates the cavern. The Blue Grotto is one of several sea caves, worldwide, that is flooded with a brilliant blue or emerald light. The quality and nature of the color in each cave is determined by the unique lighting conditions in that particular cave. In the case of the Blue Grotto, the light comes from two sources. One is a small hole in the cave wall, precisely at the waterline, that is perhaps a meter and half in diameter. This hole is barely large enough to admit a tiny rowboat, and is used as the entranceway. In photographs taken from within the cave, the above-water half of this hole appears as a spot of brilliant white light. The second source of light is a second hole, with a surface area about ten times as large as the first, which lies directly below the entranceway, separated from it by a bar of rock between one and two meters thick. Much less light, per square meter, is able to enter through the lower opening, but its large size ensures that it is, in practice, the primary source of light. In part because of the dazzling effect of the light from the above-water opening, it is impossible for a visitor who is in one of the row-boats to identify the shape of the larger hole, the outline of the bar that separates the two holes, or even the nature of the light-source, other than a general awareness that the light is coming up from underneath, and that the water in the cave is more light-filled than the air. A visitor who places a hand in the water can see it "glow" eerily in this light.

Faraglioni is the collective name for three stacks located off the island of Capri in the Bay of Naples. The stacks have been given their own names: Stella (still attached to the main island), Mezzo (after Stella), and Scopolo (or Fuori). The lacerta viridens faraglionesis or the blue-tinted lizard can only be found on Scopolo.