Procida - Peace and Quiet Just Outside Naples

Besides well-known islands like Capri and Ischia, the little island of Procida also lies near Naples. It's only about 2 km long and around a kilometer wide. About 10,000 inhabitants live on this hilly patch of land. There are three harbors here, several beaches, churches and one large fortress that used to be a prison. That's more or less everything that could be written about Procida in a nutshell, and what you'll also read in most online sources. Even so, I'm glad I came here.

First by car to Vienna, then by plane to Naples, and finally by boat to

. The boat ticket costs about 16 EUR and the service is frequent, because tourists stop here on their way to the more-visited Ischia. After about a 40-minute crossing I was already in the main harbor. Several bus lines run on the island, but I preferred to walk to my booked guesthouse, so I could see as much of the island as possible and get my bearings a bit.

Even though the island really is small, the tangled little streets, steps and hills create a labyrinth through which I walked quite a few kilometers over those few days. The small streets were very busy. Everyone here drives cars, motorbikes or e-bikes. Almost no one walks, so I wove between the vehicles and marveled at how they could pass each other in such narrow streets. Even the little bus, which barely fit between the walls, somehow gets from stop to stop.

I'd expected a small, quiet island, but on the main streets there's certainly no peace and quiet. As it happened, my accommodation was just off a small square where two roads crossed, so in the apartment, judging by the surrounding noise, I felt more like I was in the center of New York than in a small town. It's incredible how much racket a motorbike makes at two in the morning when you're trying to sleep.

On my walks through the town I came across a little shop, a bakery, a café or a restaurant every few steps. That was very pleasant, and even more pleasant was seeing how the local residents still use these little shops and small businesses. No impersonal fast-food joints or big supermarkets. In the morning they simply pop into the bakery, the butcher's or the fishmonger's and buy lovely fresh food. Everyone also strictly observes the siesta, so they're open in the morning (roughly

and then again in the early evening (roughly

The restaurants are much the same, so only a few cafés, bars and beachside spots were open all day.

I found the most photogenic spots in the harbors. Essentially all of them are beautifully colorful and typically Italian. The small marina full of boats and the houses on the cliffs literally lured me into taking photos. The harbors looked a little different from every side, and the sun on its journey across the sky offered ever-new variations of the places I photographed. Once, with my camera and tripod, I even waded out onto the breakwater, from where there was a beautiful view of the harbor beneath the fortress.

I was on

at the end of September, and the island felt as if the season had ended here half a year earlier. Only a few sleepy tourists wandered around the harbors, and the hardier ones swam at the nearby beaches. Wandering along the coast was great for photography too, because I often got beneath interesting cliffs that the wind had shaped into bizarre forms. Then I climbed a few dozen steps up into the town and, for one euro, had a brutally strong, tiny coffee to give me energy for further exploration of the island. [caption id="attachment_945" align="alignnone" width="900"]

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA[/caption] And because I was in Italy, there were of course also their beautiful doors. I love photographing them all over the world, but Italy is one of the best places in this respect. Absurd architectural details, old ruined gates that no longer lead anywhere, or beautifully restored massive wooden doors fit for some palace. This is simply something I'll never get tired of. Someday I'll have to go through my archive of photographed doors and turn it into some kind of publication.

In the morning sun or as darkness falls, you'll definitely love the small harbor beneath the old fortress. It's full of colorful houses and very photogenic. There's also a beautiful view of it from the deck of the boat.

Tip 2: I'd also recommend eating in this harbor. There are several very good restaurants here offering both seafood and classic Italian pasta dishes.

If you long for peace and quiet, stay in the south-western harbor, where hardly anyone strays. Even so, you'll have several shops, restaurants and a beautiful beach at your disposal, with the chance to watch the sunset from two large rock formations that jut out of the sea here.

As everywhere in Italy, the rule here is that if you have your coffee at the bar, it will cost you about half of what it does if you sit down with it in a café (a coffee at the bar usually costs 1 EUR). What's more, around Naples the coffee is so tiny that it really isn't worth sitting down for. So order „un caffè per favore” and stay at the bar.

It's the same old story, and I feel like I keep repeating myself in the gear paragraph. Nevertheless, don't forget the tripod, a wide-angle lens and a polarizing filter here either. On top of that, I appreciated a camera with in-body sensor stabilization (so I could film handheld more easily) and a neutral density filter, which lets me shoot long exposures even in full sun.