Yes, you’ve heard me! After almost three months in Italy I am still not ready to leave the country. I just received an email on my Blackberry that the coming winter there is going to be the coldest, longest and snowiest in the last 50 years… therefore (by now you know there is always a “therefore”) I decided to extend my Summer a little longer in a wonderful spot in Anacapri on the upper side of Island of Capri facing the Sorrentine Peninsula where the ancient Greeks and later Roman emperors like Augustus and Tiberius liked to spent their time.
Marco, from the hotel where I am staying, frowns a bit because as usual I haven’t sent a previous notice about the time of my Aliscafo arrival from Napoli Mergellina.
I never know what time I’ll wake up when I am in Naples; and, I also know that Marco is so efficient that he will find a solution in the hectic port of Marina Grande which is filled with a dense traffic of suitcases and tourists on taxi lines.
It goes without saying, that the hotel limo with the driver has just left a minute ago and with no name such as Joelle Maslaton on the passenger list.
Holding my Panama hat, both my small and a large suitcase Marco makes a phone call on his mobile phone to a taxi driver (they rule the island) who is a dear friend of his from old times (he is obviously busy doing something else probably with another client). They discuss a little and the conversation ends with a smile on Marco’s face. After 40 seconds the taxi arrives. Marco pays my taxi bill and instruct his friend with a simple question: “Guess where she is going?”
The Capri Palace Hotel & Spa in Anacapri is where I am going. As soon as I the driver opens the door, Caroline Courteau director of international guest relations, an impeccable Swiss young woman dressed in a classy blue suit and a red scarf around her neck, welcomes me with a large smile asking about my past trip in Tuscany.
I do not really feel like chatting too much as while we pass a stone wall covered by a silky cascade of falling water, I am profoundly touched by the immensity of the blue water of the swimming pool seen from below the surface through through small glass windows aligned on our right of the refreshing entrance hallway whose white linen curtains keep moving depending on the wind ‘s orders.”
Did they get that from the Greeks? I wonder silently while Caroline animatedly carries on talking about something I have not quite heard like if that magnetic view of the pool in front of us did ever exist.
Looking around, the property of a curious and intimate grace looks far more of a private estate than a hotel. I realize that there are plenty of attractions to experience here. One of them, the most important, is the luxury of not letting anyone know that I am here so that I can finally get a well- deserved rest.
Believe it or not, after so much wine tasting, numerous gastronomical adventures, plane rides, staying up late and sleeping late, sun worship abuse and slight weight gain, I need to rejuvenate in a very quite almost hidden atmosphere where I hope to give my inner and outer self a new dimension that will prepare me mentally and physically to face the upcoming cold New York City winter season.
And like did Pablo Neruda, Axel Munthe, Graham Green, Gorky, Lenin, Friederich Krupp, Alberto Moravia, Oscar Wilde Marguerite Yourcenar ,Baron Fersen and Curzio Malaparte in this charming spot of the world which is the island of Capri, I will take advantage to finally rest quietly and who knows, get the inspiration for what is today my beloved passion and living reason, the art of expressing in words what I seem to understand about beauty, harmony and awareness in my own world, life and gifted spirit.