Belvedere di Tragara at first light

Via Tragara runs east from the centre of Capri between garden walls, wisteria and the gates of private villas, and ends at a small semicircular terrace on the cliff. From it the Faraglioni are close — near enough that a long lens fills the frame with rock and sea, and a wide lens still puts all three stacks behind two people.

It faces south-east, which makes it the sunrise viewpoint of the island. In the half hour after the sun clears the Sorrentine peninsula the stacks are backlit, the water between them turns white, and the light rakes along the cliff face. By late morning the same view is flat and the terrace has a queue. In the evening the stacks fall into shadow but the sky behind them still colours, giving a silhouette version of the same shot.

The walk out is fifteen minutes on level paving from the Piazzetta and is itself a location: the villa gates, the pergolas and the flower walls make a corridor of close backgrounds. The terrace is public and free with no gate and no closing time, which is unusual on Capri and makes it the only genuinely reliable sunrise option here. From the belvedere the stepped path continues down to Marina Piccola, which is a long descent rather than a stroll.