Capri is a small, almost entirely rocky island in the Bay of Naples, off the southern tip of the Sorrento peninsula. Only 10 square kilometres in area, it has been a magnet for the wealthy, the famous and the merely curious since the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius built twelve villas on the island in the 1st century CE — Tiberius spent the last ten years of his reign on Capri, ruling the Roman Empire from the cliff-top villa now known as Villa Jovis, whose ruins can still be visited. Since then the list of people who have hidden out here has included Lenin, Maxim Gorky, Graham Greene, Jackie Kennedy, and half the movie stars of the 1950s and 1960s. In high summer the day-trip crowds from Naples and Sorrento can be overwhelming; out of season, it is still one of the loveliest places in Italy.
The island has two towns. Capri town, the larger and more famous, sits on a saddle of rock above the sea and is reached from the port by a funicular. At its heart is the Piazzetta — a tiny café-lined square that Fellini called "the most beautiful open-air drawing room in the world". The lanes fanning out from it lead to the Gardens of Augustus (with the classic view of the Faraglioni sea stacks), Tiberius's Villa Jovis, and the cliff path down to the Natural Arch. The second town, Anacapri, is higher up on a plateau at the north-west end of the island and has a quieter, more village-like feel; from here a chairlift climbs to the summit of Monte Solaro (589 m) and the best view on the island, taking in the whole Bay of Naples and Vesuvius in the distance. Villa San Michele, Anacapri's remarkable house-museum, is another reason to make the trip up.
The island's most famous sight is the Blue Grotto (Grotta Azzurra), a sea cave where sunlight entering through an underwater opening turns the water a luminous electric blue. You reach it by boat from Marina Grande, transfer to a small rowboat at the entrance, and lie flat while the boatman pulls you inside on a chain. It is crowded, it is commercialised, and it is still genuinely extraordinary. Come as a day trip by hydrofoil from Naples or Sorrento (45 minutes), or — much better — stay overnight, so that when the last ferry leaves in the late afternoon you can walk the empty streets of Capri town at dusk.