Forty-eight hours on Capri

Capri rewards the unhurried. The island is small enough to cross in an afternoon and lovely enough that you will not want to, so the art of a good weekend there is to do a little less, more slowly, and to have the right glasses for each change of light. This is how we would spend two days, from the first ferry to the last glass.

Arriving by sea

Come in the morning, by ferry from Naples or Sorrento. The boat swings into Marina Grande with the whole island stacked above the harbour, white houses climbing through the green, and the glare off the water is already strong. This is the hour for a gradient: Monaco in Havana / Brown Gradient shades the sky and leaves the gangway in plain view.

Take the funicular up to the Piazzetta and do what everyone does, which is to sit down. The little square beneath the clock tower is the island's drawing room, and the whole point of it is the watching: day-trippers passing through, waiters weaving between the tables, a coffee turning into lunch by degrees. Riviera in Crystal / Bottle Green suits the white walls, keeps the colours true and looks lighter on the face than its lenses suggest.

Via Tragara and the Faraglioni

After lunch, walk. From the Gardens of Augustus you can look down on Via Krupp, the path that zigzags down the cliff towards Marina Piccola. It has spent long stretches closed to walkers, so check before you count on it; even from above, it is one of the island's great sights. Then follow Via Tragara out along the cliffs, past lemon trees and whitewashed garden walls, to the belvedere at its end, where the Faraglioni appear all at once: three pale stacks standing in a sea of improbable blue.

Late afternoon on Via Tragara is honey's hour. Vertex in Havana / Honey warms the stone and the sea alike, and its winged corners look right with linen and a slow pace. Stay for the light, then make it an early night. Tomorrow begins on the water.

Around the island

On the second morning, take a boat out from Marina Grande, with a skipper of your own or in a small group. A slow circuit takes a couple of hours and shows you the island properly: cliffs dropping straight into deep water, grottoes named for their colours, and the arch through the middle Faraglione, which the boats slip through as if it were a doorway. If the sea is calm, stop at the Blue Grotto, where you lie back in a rowing boat to pass under the low entrance and come up inside a cave that seems lit from below.

On the water the light comes at you twice, once from the sky and again off the sea, so wear your darkest lens. Nocturne in Jet / Onyx keeps the blues honest at noon; Monaco's gradient, if you brought it, looks made for the varnished deck of an old wooden boat.

On an island this small, the only thing worth hurrying for is the last ferry.

Anacapri, and the long evening

In the afternoon, go up to Anacapri, the island's higher and quieter half. Ride the chairlift to the top of Monte Solaro, where on a clear day the whole bay lies open below you, then wander the lanes of white houses with their shutters drawn against the heat. A pale frame belongs here: Monaco in Champagne / Brown Gradient sits easily against whitewash and bougainvillea.

Come back down to the Piazzetta for aperitivo, when the light turns the colour of the drinks and the whole island seems to arrive at once. This is rose's hour: Nocturne in Jet / Rose, worn with a white shirt, is as close to the spirit of the place as glasses get.

Dinner on Capri begins late and ends later. Find a table in one of the lanes that lead off the square, order whatever came in on the boats that morning, and let the evening run on. By now your sunglasses belong in their case, though a ruby lens was made for exactly this hour: Lumix in Jet / Ruby. In the morning, take the later ferry home. The island is never quieter than before the day boats arrive.

Every frame here is coming in Collection II, and the list is open if you would like to hear first. For more on which tint suits which light, see On choosing a tint.