DREAMSCAPES WINTER 2023/2024
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F
or thousands of years, Italy's enchanting island of
Capri has been a destination that has lured exiles and
escapees, those seeking renewal and recovery, and has
served as a playground for the rich and famous. You can thank
the Roman emperors—famously Tiberius and Augustus—
Capri's first tourists who travelled seeking otium, or educated
leisure—writing, swimming, eating and pursuing academics.
It was a contemporary of those early Roman hedonists,
Seneca the Younger, who said that, "Leisure without literature
is death and burial for a living man."
I was eager for my own dash of otium, and so set out for
Capri to pursue the island's literary heritage.
Here's a Writer's Guide to Capri:
Hidden Pleasures
On a crystal autumn day, Capri dominates the sky from the
pier at Sorrento. This was far different from Charles
Dickens's first view of the isle. In his travelogue Pictures From
Italy, it appears through a fog, "now close at hand, now far
off, now unseen." As the ferry approached, I knew the perfect
weather couldn't be wasted. I decide to walk from the
western village of Anacapri, over the peaked crown of Monte
Solaro, to the town of Capri, nestled in an earthly saddle.
L I T E R A R Y M E D I T E R R A N E A N
PHOTOS:
CAPRI.COM
MUST DO
A visit to Villa San Michele, the former Anacapri home of
Swedish physician, Axel Munthe. Friend of royalty and ras-
cals (he famously hosted Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas
after the couple was thrown out of the Hotel Quisisana).
Munthe's book The Story of San Michele (1929), was a best-
seller and brought Capri's charms to a global audience.
BY J.R. PATTERSON
VISIT CAPRI
Like a Writer
