What to see in the Blue Grotto of Capri, itinerary including the main rooms that characterize this magnificent natural cave, including the Blue Cathedral and the Galleria dei Pilastri.
Tourist information
The coast of the island of Capri, full of small bays and inlets, hides a natural cavity known all over the world, the spectacular Blue Grotto.
The cave is located in the extreme north-western tip of Capri and is dominated by the Imperial Villa of Gradola.
In 1964, Roman statues depicting marine deities were discovered at the bottom of the cave, currently kept in the Certosa Museum.
These marble sculptures decorated the nymphaeum of the emperor Tiberius, they were attached to the walls with hooks that the sea water corroded and caused to yield causing the statues to fall into the sea.
Before the summer of 1826 the Blue Grotto was called Gràdola and it was a place where few people went into it, frightening legends circulated and even fishermen did not dare approach it.
They were two German tourists, the poet Augusto Kopisch and the painter Ernesto Fries who in August 1826 explored the cavity and realized that inside there was nothing terrifying and that the flashes were only the reflections of the sun on the sandy bottom water.
The cave was called Azzurra by Augusto Kopisch.
What see
The Blue Grotto about 60 meters long and 25 meters wide is a complex of cavities made up of several rooms.
Access to the cave is through an opening one meter high from sea level and 2 meters wide, you enter with typical rowboats in the first environment, the most visited and known one, the so-called Blue Cathedral, where you can admire the beautiful blue color and the splendor of the immersed objects, due to a phenomenon of light refraction.
The cave continues at the far right with the three branches of the Galleria dei Pilastri converging in a single passage to the Sala dei Nomi, so called for the signatures of the visitors placed on the walls, then the passage narrows up to the Corrosion Room, the last part accessible.
