Some of My Favourite Holiday Places- Capri

 Many of us have favourite holiday places, these are places that are memorable, sometimes we visit only once, others we return to again and again. I always think that there are too many wonderful places in the world to just keep doing the same thing each year. But its personal. As I haven’t travelled now since Autumn 2019, I have been thinking more aboutt past holidays destinations.

Italy is a beautiful country with lots on offer, I think my favourite place is the island of Capri. This small island is just off the coast of Naples on the Amalfi coast.  Some may feel that’s it's an expensive over-commercialised destination crammed with day-trippers. But no-one can deny that Capri has earned it's fame for many reasons. It’s natural beauty, delicious cuisine, world-class shopping, walking trails, historical buildings and stunning vistas.The combination of island simplicity, natural beauty yet with a busy, cosmopolitan lifestyle, offers something for everybody.

There are two separate towns on the island of Capri as well as the port. Capri town, with its well-known attractions and famous shopping streets has a tangible deluxe feel to it. Anacapri (Old town) is more residential with quiet lanes and a traditional feel. From here you can take the chair lift or funicular to the top of Monte Solaro.I am scared of heights but this was worth it. So take a few deep breaths.

This peaceful Mediterranean retreat yet fashionable meeting place has been popular since roman times. Despite its size it was a destination on the grand tour attracting everybody, from philosophers to princes, wanting to spend at least a week, if not months, experiencing the dramatic land and seascapes and the hospitality of the islanders. Many of these visitors decided to stay for the entire year. It was the place to see and definitely the place to be seen. You can fully understand why it has been a long preserve of celebrities and the super-rich needing a hideout to rest and let their hair down for a few weeks.

Steep cliffs rise majestically from an impossibly blue sea with elegant villas covered in wisteria and bougainvillea. If you take a stroll along via Tragara, this is the path that takes you past the once luxurious private villas that are now 5-star hotels. You will discover the Faraglioni rocks, the symbol of the Isle of Capri and be rewarded with spectacularly, wonderful views. Take a bench seat, they are s placed around the lookout area and marvel at the view of the glorious coastline and sheer drops.

In this unique and enchanting spot, Villa Lysis, was built in 1904 by Count Jacques d'Adelswärd Fersen. Villa Lysis is as eccentric as the nobleman himself, who withdrew to Capri in self-imposed exile to escape a series of scandals in his home country. Edouard Chimot, was commissioned to design a Neoclassical decadent refuge, which Architecturally was mainly  in a Art Nouveau style, his elegant, luxurious home was both reserved and opulent at the same time. The villa was Dedicated to the youth of love and the Latin inscription above the front steps “AMORI ET DOLORI SACRVM” was a shrine to love and sorrow. In 1985, Villa Lysis passed into possession of the Italian state and the building was restored in the 1990s by the Lysis Funds Association (founded in 1986) and the Municipality of Capri. In 2014 the Apeiron Association began a restoration program to transform the house into a cultural centre and event venue. I visited in the mid-90s and loved the feel and vistas of this romantic villa, having seen the more recent pictures perhaps it has lost a little of its charm. 

Close-by, is where the Roman emperor Tiberius had built his Villa Jovis two millennia earlier. Tiberius made it his home when Rome became too hot. If his biographers are to be believed, he got up to all sorts of scandalous behaviour inside his imperial cliff-top villa. You can still visit the ruins of his villas. For more than a decade in the early part of the first century AD, this picturesque Italian island was the principal home of the emperor, Tiberius. (Known as the Tyrant)  He lived a life of extraordinary debauchery, fortified by the finest food and wines served by nude handmaidens. Troupes of beautiful youths of both sexes, gathered from all corners of the Roman world and he hosted endless summer orgies, so by all accounts a good time was had on Capri.

In equal measure to his lechery, however was his bloodlust, he watched his enemies being tortured before being thrown 300ft off the cliffs into the sea below. Close to the Emperor's apartments was a precipice called Tiberius Fall, because from it, he would dispense with unwelcome visitors or disobedient servants, rumour has it even unwanted wives. Putting aside the gruesome history, its still one of the stunning places, I have seen and there is a peacefulness. (Even with the hordes of tourists)

Capri is definitely worth visiting, whatever your budget as you’ll enjoy some sublime moments and take lovely photographs, it what must be one of the most iconic photographic settings.

Italian Ice-Creams and Fish Suppers in Scotland

I have just read Mary Contini’s book Notes to Olivia about her Italian family’s early days in Edinburgh. She is the owner of the famous deli, Valvont and Crola. Scotland's oldest Delicatessen and Italian Wine Merchant and one of Europe's most original Specialist Food Shops. I will come back to the story of this a bit later.

Scotland has long enjoyed an affiliation with Italians since the first immigrants arrived in the late 1800s. It is estimated there are tens of thousands of Scots of Italian heritage, including high profile figures. Italian immigration into Scotland forever reshaped the country's culinary and social landscape.

Interestingly, post Brexit in 2016 there was the biggest surge in immigration in 100 years. One thing that makes it similar to the first phase of immigration from Italian is that large numbers are fleeing due to the lack of opportunity often in Puglia, Calabria and Sicily.

From the late 19th century, Scotland saw an increase in Italian immigrants. At this time, many Italians experienced poverty. Men fled to Scotland to make money to support their families in Italy, sending for them later. For some, it was seen as a stopping point en-route to America. Initially, they came from northern areas such as Tuscany, but emigration spread to the south by the 1900s. When America changed its immigration policy and closed the door of opportunity for many of the poorest Europeans, Scotland saw a further increase in Italian immigrants. The main reasons to seek a new life was as a direct result of economic conditions. Living conditions were harsh, with famine and sometimes droughts. Furthermore, Italy had an agricultural-based economy that was experiencing severe hardships and industrialisation was slower than in other European nations.  Many saw an opportunity to go elsewhere to earn a better living. After a slow start, in which the Italian immigrants failed to make any real economic progression, the Italians seized the opportunity to move into the catering world. Initially working as ‘hokey pokey’ men, selling ice cream from barrows, these men had been recruited in London and then sent to Scotland. They quickly moved into working-class areas, combining ice cream making with selling fish and chips. Restaurants and takeaways were established and sold food made using ingredients widely available in Scotland like fish and potatoes. To this day most Scottish towns still have an Italian chippy.

Fish and chips became essential to the diet of the ordinary man and woman, through the latter part of the 19th century and well into the 20th century. The fish and chip trade expanded greatly to satisfy the needs of the growing industrial population of Great Britain. In fact, you might say that the Industrial Revolution was fuelled partly by fish and chips! Nobody, however, could dispute the Italian influence after they had spotted the business opportunities to be had north of the border by selling pesce e patate. Stuart Atkinson, Scottish executive councillor with the National Fish Friers Federation, said their role was significant. As large numbers of Italian immigrants entered the Scottish fish and chip trade from around 1890 by 1914, they dominated the trade and opened many shops throughout Scotland.

From humble beginnings, by the 1920s these barrows had been transformed into luxury establishments in the city centres via working class areas. There are many famous Italian businesses in Scottish society like Nardini’s which boasted a beautiful Art Deco tearoom that became an key attraction. There was a greater degree of acceptance from the Temperance Movement as the cafés chose not to sell alcohol. Cafés such as these were as much an assertion of an identity in a new land as they were a business as a means of breadwinning. Helping to integrate the new arrivals into the communities of Scottish towns and cities. They were popular ventures for immigrants, and locals took very quickly to the idea. 

In Glasgow, police statistics show that in 1903 there were 89 ice cream shops in the city. A year later that number had nearly doubled, reaching 184, and by 1905 there were estimated to be 336 ice cream shops in the Glasgow area alone. Many made a living from the Scottish sweet tooth. ITally is slang for Italian and the title refers to both Italian blood and to the raspberry sauce added to ice-cream. It is fair to say that Italian cafés were at the heart of Scottish culture, but the question remains as to whether Italians were fully accepted in Scottish society. Their cafés were often the scene of unruly behaviour. This led to cries that the Italian cafés were morally corrupt, articles appeared in newspapers reporting the ‘ice cream hell’. Their popularity wasn’t universal and they did encounter some hard times along the way, which most likely strengthened the ties of the growing Italian community, who helped one another when needed. Immigrants can enrich and bring a new dimension and flavour to the customs and culture of their adopted land. And I am sure that the colourful Italian community must have added character to the dour cities, towns and villages in Scotland. 

What whetted by interest in this subject was the story of brothers Alfonso and Vittorio Crolla who emigrated to Scotland and established a small ice-cream and confectionery in 1906. They were to team up with Raffaele Valvona in 1934, by that time an elderly shopkeeper who was thought by the Italian community to need the acumen of the Crolla family. They sold easily affordable food, mainly to the Italian immigrant community. This succeeded brilliantly, helped by the fact that a lot of returning troops after the war, who had fought in Italy, had acquired a taste for the Italian meats, cheeses and olives.  Having concentrated on inexpensive produce, Valvona & Crolla made the shrewd decision, as supermarkets began to undersell local businesses, to specialise by importing the best Italian food and drink. They were to be a pioneer of healthy food, never failing to point out the virtues of low-cost tomatoes and packets of spaghetti. Alfonso died in the war, but Alfonso’s son, Vittorio continued to work with his uncle, taking over the business in 1945 with his brother-in-law, Carlo Contini.

For 40 years Victor Crolla, was the head of the family at Valvona & Crolla.  His Italian delicatessen was famous not only in Edinburgh but among tens of thousands of festival and other visitors to the Scottish capital. The language in the shop was sui generis (a hybrid between Leith Scots and High Neapolitan) It speaks volumes for the family's relationship with the Scots that during the Second World War the shop's loyal staff continued to keep it open so that there was a business to return to. Victor Crolla, stepped down in 1985, but in the words of his nephew Philip Contini who ran the shop, he continued to be the spiritual head of the store. In 2019 Philip and his wife Mary, handed over the reins to their eldest daughter, Francesca Contini Mackie, Alfonso’s great-grand daughter making this a fourth- generation family business which brings a little bit of Italy to Scotland.

I wish them a continued success; I am a great believer in family and local businesses. I also think it shows how important it is to mix cultures by immigration and hope this does continue as it enriches all our lives for the better!