3 Days on Procida: A Journal from Italy's Smallest Island
I was supposed to go to Capri. Everyone goes to Capri. The hydrofoil tickets were booked, the Instagram locations scouted. Then the Capri ferry was delayed three hours and the Caremar to Procida was leaving in ten minutes. I looked at my phone, looked at the departure board, and made a decision that became one of the best accidents of my life.
Day 1: The Arrival
The ferry from Naples takes 40 minutes on the slow boat, 25 on the fast one. I took the slow one. EUR 15 one way. Calata Porta di Massa terminal, Naples — chaotic, loud, Italian in the best possible way.
Procida appeared as a cluster of pastel houses stacked on a hillside. Pink, yellow, terracotta, pale blue. From the water, it looks like someone dropped a Mediterranean village into a watercolour palette. The island is 3.7 km squared — the smallest inhabited island in the Bay of Naples. You can walk across it in 30 minutes.
I arrived at Marina Grande (also called Sancio Cattolico) and immediately got lost, which on Procida means you've walked 400 metres in the wrong direction. A fisherman pointed me toward my B&B — a converted apartment on Via Roma, EUR 65/night in May, with a balcony overlooking a courtyard where someone's grandmother was hanging laundry.
First impressions: no cars. Well, almost no cars — there are some, but the roads are so narrow that most people walk or take the L1 micro-bus (EUR 1.50). Electric scooters rent for EUR 30-50/day. I walked. Everything is close.
Lunch at Marina Corricella. I'd seen photos of this harbour in magazines and thought they were edited. They're not. Corricella is a crescent of fishermen's houses painted in every shade of warm — peach, salmon, lemon, mint — tumbling down to a harbour where wooden fishing boats bob at their moorings. I sat at a table at La Lampara, ordered grilled calamari and a glass of Falanghina, and stared at the view for 45 minutes.
The calamari was EUR 14. The wine was EUR 5. The view was free.
Day 2: The Island Loop
Procida doesn't have a lot of "attractions" in the conventional sense. It has a lot of walking, swimming, eating, and staring at things that look like paintings. That's the point.
Morning: I climbed to Terra Murata, the fortified medieval village at the highest point of the island (91 metres). This is where Procidani lived for centuries to protect against pirate raids. The Abbazia di San Michele Arcangelo (Abbey of St. Michael) sits at the summit — an 11th-century church with a coffered ceiling and a crypt that, honestly, was a bit creepy. But the terrace behind the abbey has a view that reaches to Ischia, Capri, and the Amalfi coast. I could see Vesuvius fuming on the mainland.
The walk down from Terra Murata takes you through narrow stepped alleys between houses so close together that neighbours could shake hands from opposite balconies. Laundry strung between buildings. Cats everywhere. The smell of something being cooked in every other doorway.
Afternoon: Spiaggia della Chiaia. Procida's best beach, reached by 186 stone steps (yes, I counted on the way back up). A curve of dark volcanic sand between tuff cliffs. The water is that ridiculous Bay of Naples turquoise. I rented a sunbed (EUR 10) and spent three hours reading, swimming, and eating a granita from the beach bar.
Evening: back to Corricella for dinner. I asked for whatever the fishermen caught that day. Got a whole branzino, grilled with lemon and capers. EUR 18. The sun set behind Ischia while I ate. I ordered another glass of wine and didn't feel guilty about it.
Day 3: The Pastry and the Goodbye
I need to talk about the lingua di Procida. It's a pastry — a tongue-shaped puff pastry shell filled with lemon cream and dusted with powdered sugar. It exists only on Procida. Bar Dal Cavaliere on Via Roma makes the definitive version. EUR 3. I ate two on Day 1, one on Day 2, and three on Day 3 because I was leaving and panicked.
The lemon cream isn't the industrial custard you get in Naples. It's made with Procida's own lemons — a variety twice the size of normal lemons, with thick aromatic skin. The pastry is flaky and buttery. It's the single best pastry I've eaten in Italy, and I say that having spent a month eating my way through Rome, Florence, and Naples.
My last morning I walked to Vivara Nature Reserve — a tiny island connected to Procida by a bridge. It's a protected area with walking trails through Mediterranean scrub. Volcanic rock, wild herbs, and views that confirmed what I already knew: I'd picked the right island.
The ferry back to Naples left at 2PM. I sat on the deck watching Procida shrink. The pastel houses, the church tower, the fishing boats. None of it was on my original itinerary. All of it was better than anything I'd planned.
