Fine time for a stroll down the isle

After experiencing the happy haunting ground of Capri's Blue Grotto, Shaney Hudson rises above the crowds with a hike on the high roads.

FOR hundreds of years, fishermen used to shy away from this place, believing it was haunted. Statues of pagan gods have been found on the seabed. It was the dedicated nymphaeum of Emperor Tiberius a little less than 2000 years ago. And the kicker is that if I want to see it, with no boatmen around to row me in, I have to swim for it.

The swell is picking up as I take long strokes towards the cave. I'm shivering. It's summer but I hadn't expected the Mediterranean to be this cold. Unbroken waves clap against the limestone cliffs. I reach for a chain bolted to the cliffside and use it to pull myself up and into the darkness.

Inside, Capri's famous Blue Grotto is as high and wide as the sanctuary of a church and illuminated with soft light. However, swimming a good 25 metres in, I don't really understand the fuss. It's a cave and, yes, it's cool to swim in but it's not very ... blue. Then I turn around and understand. It's as though there is something alive in here. The water glows a milky, fluorescent indigo, as though someone is holding a giant sapphire up to the sun. The light refracts and shimmers on the high cavern walls. The optical illusion is so overwhelming, it's easy to understand why this place has been feared and revered for thousands of years.

Capri, an hour plus ferry ride off the coast of Naples, is one of Italy's most exclusive destinations - drenched in sun, draped with luxury villas and surrounded by a flotilla of mega-yachts. For 2000 years, it has been arcadia for emperors and conquerors, a retreat for poets, artists and writers and the target of pirates. Nowadays, it has caught the eye of the travelling public, who seem to have an insatiable appetite for its charms. There is no way to put this delicately: in summer, Capri is besieged by day-trippers who arrive from as far away as Rome (a four-hour journey in each direction) to take pictures of its famous pinnacles and grotto, swim in its turquoise waters and wolf down an alfresco seafood lunch before racing to catch the afternoon ferry.

It's a worthwhile excursion and, if pushed, you can see Capri in a day. But if you stay on the island, there are opportunities to appreciate Capri in ways day-trippers never will. Visitors pay €10 ($14) to glimpse the Blue Grotto for one or two minutes from a rowboat. But after 4pm, when the day trippers depart and Capri's boatmen head home, the grotto becomes a favourite local swimming spot.

We've chosen to stay in Anacapri, a quieter village than the island's main settlement, Capri town. In the late afternoon, Anacapri empties and the atmosphere changes. Guidebooks are replaced with grocery lists as locals filter into town. Neighbours catch up on gossip, children play soccer in the piazzas and old people grumble, thumping their canes emphatically and en masse.

It's hard not to fall in love with the romance of the place. Capri's signature is its hand-painted tiles; every piazza, public bench and garden is decorated with tiles depicting lemon groves, the seaside and the island's other well-known feature, its flowers. Flowers grow everywhere - in window boxes, in cracks in the pavement and up the walls.

Because of the island's botanic environment, walks criss-cross the landscape. On our second day, we visit the local bakery, buy rockmelon from the greengrocer and get marinated eggplant and tomato, prosciutto, knobs of mozzarella and bottles of water from the deli. With provisions in our backpacks, we walk a long stretch down the Via Migliera, passing lemon groves and vegetable gardens. We crush ripe figs underfoot and are occasionally shaded by canopies of grapevines. Each villa we pass is graced with its own hand-painted tile. My favourite is a globe with an arrow pointing to Capri and the declaration, "Our place in the world" written in Italian. I'm beginning to feel that way about the island.