Villa San Michele

About this place

A red granite sphinx sits on the parapet with its back to you, staring out across the Bay of Naples. It is some three thousand two hundred years old, and it ended up here because a Swedish doctor named Axel Munthe decided, around 1900, to build his house on the ruins of a Roman villa in Anacapri. The house itself is small. The view from its loggia and its vine-covered walk is one of the widest in southern Italy — the whole bay beneath you, Vesuvius opposite, Sorrento a white thread on the far shore. Munthe was no ordinary collector. He was a celebrated physician who became personal doctor to Queen Victoria of Sweden, and the memoir he later wrote, The Story of San Michele, sold in the millions and made this house famous long before most of its visitors ever set eyes on it. The columns, marble heads and shards of mosaic set into the walls he gathered himself, from the island and from the antiquities trade; the little chapel, the garden and the colonnade are his own design rather than an architect's. Capri's harsh light eventually ruined his eyes and he moved to the dark Torre di Materita elsewhere on the island. A Swedish foundation runs the place today. Budget your time honestly: an hour to ninety minutes covers it, which is what the villa itself tells you. There are only a handful of rooms, and the antiquities are a gifted amateur's hoard from an age with looser rules about digging, not a catalogued archaeological museum — the effect is cumulative rather than piece by piece. What you really came for is outside: the parapet, the pergola walk, the steps down to the chapel. Above the house rises Monte Barbarossa, which Munthe bought to stop the netting of migrating birds; it is still a sanctuary, with a ringing station where migration is studied, crowned by a ruined castle you can reach only on the foundation's guided visit — Thursdays from April to October, booked in advance. The journey is half the decision. A fast ferry from Sorrento's Marina Piccola reaches Capri's Marina Grande in twenty to thirty minutes, with fares from about €21 on the cheapest operator and €24–28 on the fast boats, rising with season. Know two things: the boats from Sorrento, Naples and Amalfi mostly dock between ten and noon, so the island fills in a single wave, and the last sailings sell out — book your return before you board. From the port a bus climbs to Anacapri (€2.40 a ride, about €8 for a day pass), and from Piazza Vittoria it is a short flight of steps at the stop and then a five-minute walk along a level pedestrian avenue to the gate. Inside, though, this is a Capri house through and through — stairs, terraces and uneven stone paths — and the foundation says plainly that it is not suited to visitors with reduced mobility, so do not count on bringing a wheelchair or a stroller round it. The Phoenician Steps — 921 of them by the usual count, fewer by some — climb from above the port to Anacapri, a genuine hour-plus effort in the heat, and stretches have been closed for repair at times; if you want them, walk down rather than up. And remember that Capri is its own island, not part of the Amalfi Coast: there is no mosque on it and we could not confirm any certified halal restaurant, so plan meals and prayers accordingly.