The Blue Grotto, explained

I live on Via Pagliaro, the road that runs down towards the grotto, and I have watched that queue from the bus stop since I was a child. The argument I have most often is about the price. It is not the figure people arrive with, and it is not one figure.

Three payments, two totals

The cave is a state-owned archaeological site, which is why the money splits three ways and why nobody publishes a sum. Six euro is the state entrance ticket and goes to the Ministero della Cultura. Twelve is the rowboat fare and goes to the Cooperativa Battellieri Grotta Azzurra, in cash, at the mouth. That makes €18, and €18 is the number every other guide prints.

The payment that catches people is the third one. Arriving from Marina Grande, a return motorboat transfer of €23 to €25 sits underneath the other two, goes to a third company again, and is included in nothing. So the real total for the way most visitors actually arrive is €41 to €42. capri.com prints €19 on arithmetic implying a €13 rowboat that no official source confirms, so I would say €18 and carry €19.

Reductions apply to the six euro only. The first Sunday of the month waives the state ticket for everyone, which still leaves €12 from land or €36 from Marina Grande, in a bigger crowd than usual. The full table, and who takes which share.

What the five minutes are actually like

The mouth stands about a metre above the water and two metres wide. Everyone lies flat in the bottom of the rowboat, four passengers at most, while the rower hauls on a chain fixed to the rock and times the pull to the swell. Inside, the chamber runs about 60 metres long and 25 wide, the vault seven metres up and fourteen at its highest.

The blue does not come through the hole you entered by. A second, much larger opening sits below the waterline, separated from the visible one by a band of rock, and seawater absorbs red light while passing blue. A dead-flat sea weakens the effect rather than perfecting it: that submerged window needs some surface movement to transmit light at all.

Then you are back out. Under five minutes, start to finish. I am not going to dress that up, and whether it is worth the wait is a fair question.

Why it shuts, and how to find out

The same metre of clearance that makes the entry memorable is what closes the site. Any swell, high tide or onshore wind and there is no way through; northerly winds almost always mean closed, and conditions often worsen after three. The only fixed closures are 25 December and 1 January, but it opens and shuts within the same day often enough that a yes in the morning is not a yes at four.

The call is made by the skippers at the cave mouth at nine in the morning, so nobody knows the night before, me included. What you can do is check. Motoscafisti publish a dated open or closed banner, updated daily, syndicated by capri.com and capri.net, March to late October; there is a phone line too, +39 081 8375646, after 9am. Failing both, if the motorboat ticket desks at Marina Grande are shut, so is the cave. Hours, and why the published ones disagree.

The €6 and the €12 are handed over at the cave, so a closure costs you nothing there. What is exposed is a pre-paid transfer or tour. I could not find a published refund policy from any of the operators, so ask at the desk before you pay.

The cheap way in, in full

Here is the route I would take myself. The Staiano bus runs from Piazza della Pace in Anacapri for €2.40 bought in advance or €2.90 on board, with a day pass at €7.50; sources put the journey anywhere between five and fifteen minutes. On foot it is 3.5 km and forty to fifty minutes, all downhill.

From the road a flight of stairs drops to the landing. You pay your €18 there, and you wait on the steps rather than bobbing offshore, which even capri.com recommends if you are prone to seasickness. Reckon on an hour and a half to two hours from the centre of Anacapri, queue included. None of it is bookable and none of it needs to be. If that is all you wanted, take it and spend the difference on lunch. The land route, step by step.

Why I still put my clients on a boat

Because for most of the people I take out, the grotto is not the day. They come from Sorrento, Naples or Positano, the crossing is a stretch of coast they would not otherwise see, and the circuit passes the Faraglioni and half a dozen other caves. The grotto is a short stop inside that, and it may not happen.

So book the boat for the day, not for the cave. Book it for the cave and you will spend the morning angry at a queue the operator cannot shorten and a sea it cannot predict. The cheapest of the seven, the island circuit at €25, is also the lowest rated at 4.3 across nearly six thousand reviews, and I think that gap is this misunderstanding turning up in the scores. The one product pointed at the queue is the early entrance at €80, and it carries 29 reviews, which is not much to lean on. All seven, cheapest first.

Whichever you pick, the €18 is still yours to hand over at the mouth. Check the banner before you spend anything else.

Ready to book a boat?

If the day out is what you are buying, the options are compared here, cheapest first. If you would rather go by land and keep the €18, that route is written up in full.

Frequently asked questions