2023-12-21 21:17:38
Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot and Jackie Kennedy, Maxim Gorki, Rainer Maria Rilke and Friedrich Alfred Krupp: They all lived and loved on Capri. Who is in charge of the magical island off Naples today, where the sun, with Mount Vesuvius behind it, sinks into the sea more dramatically than anywhere else in the world? I have asked native and elective caprese to the colorful sacrament to have it in FAZ Magazin to show for the first time.
Americans in particular have been visiting the island in midsummer since the 1990s. In the five-star hotels, guests like to drink Negroni as an aperitif, but prefer the rosé from Provence, “Whispering Angel”. Goal for the day: to get a good seat in the It restaurants and beach clubs with Dior pop-up stores. For this you give the concierge a tip, which in Berlin would be enough for an entire dinner with wine at the “Borchardt”. Dinner, that’s the reason for my trip.
I would like to ask the Capri Apostles to take communion, which should not be the last, and place it under the lemon trees in the “Da Paolino” restaurant. This will be difficult. Get the right people here quickly. But it succeeds, also thanks to Stefanie Sonnentag, the busy German on Capri, who makes the impossible possible. Only the police chief of Capri canceled a few minutes before the shooting. Who knows why!
This Monday, early in the evening, 13 personalities come to “Paolino” on foot, by motorbike or with a chauffeur. Ciao Bella! Ciao Carissimo! Almost everyone knows each other or has heard of each other. For me, everyone except Timo Miettinen are blind dates. It’s like a child’s birthday party. Loud, chaotic, funny, screaming.
The rich, beautiful and famous
Oliver Hutten, the German director of the Tiberio Palace Hotel, could tell a lot about the rich, famous and beautiful – but he doesn’t. He will mostly stay on the island over the winter, feeling the melancholy, hiking and preparing for the next season. 2023 was another good year for him and his hotel in one of the most expensive places in the world. From 1500 euros per night, no one stays for less than three nights. Also a lot of young audience. The day: breakfast, boat, La Fontelina Beach Club, shopping, aperitivo, dinner, day in and day out, until the island calms down in mid-September. By the way, no one rains red roses from the helicopter anymore, says the director. Luxury has become more subtle.
Elena of Hesse runs through her villa and shows visitors her Capri home: a house on the hill overlooking the harbor, a postcard. Her grandmother Mafalda of Savoy had the villa built in the 1930s, was later kidnapped by the Nazis and died in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Elena lives in Milan most of the time and paints. She is a cool woman with whom you can immediately start a conversation and with whom you could definitely party endlessly. She is part of the Capri Circle that spends the summer here every year and accepts evening invitations from other residents from all over the world. Parties for Capri VIPs only. You definitely won’t see any pictures of it later.
Gianluigi Lembo and Alessandro Ruocco (far right) are friends, you can tell by the same shirts. Both were born on Capri. Alessandro traveled around the world just to return. Since 2012 he has been running Wonderland, a luxury vintage shop, with his sister, perhaps because he misses the good old days. Gianluigi owns the only nightclub and he sings Italian culture up and down while playing the guitar. In the off-season, he flies to Miami or Dubai to give off a Capri feeling at the parties. How the bar manager of the Tiberio Palace mixes his cocktails at a party in Miami in December. In the end, everything on this island pays off: light, atmosphere, longing.
#Kiki #Kausch #invites #dinner #Capri