{"id":159744,"date":"2022-09-21T11:41:50","date_gmt":"2022-09-21T15:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=159744"},"modified":"2022-09-21T11:41:50","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T15:41:50","slug":"capri-in-the-carib-inside-antiguas-ritzy-italian-yachting-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/capri-in-the-carib-inside-antiguas-ritzy-italian-yachting-hub\/","title":{"rendered":"Capri in the Carib: Inside Antigua\u2019s ritzy Italian yachting hub"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NYPOST: Italians have a big advantage over most countries when they arrive somewhere new \u2014 at least according to Angelo Caputo. \u201cI always say we conquer them with spaghetti rather than weapons,\u201d he tells The Post.<\/p>

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That\u2019s what he did 40 years ago, when he first moored his sloop off the southern coast of Antigua and prepped an invasion by pasta \u2014 or to be more precise, by setting up the club-restaurant Abracadabra.<\/p>\n

Four decades later, it\u2019s still one of the country\u2019s buzziest beach spots, and the anchor for an unlikely outpost of Little Italy in the Caribbean. If you fancy pizza as good as in Naples, just book a trip down to Antigua\u2019s southern coast, in and around Falmouth and English Harbour.<\/p>

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Caputo wasn\u2019t the only Italian incomer. A year after he first set foot here, Tuscan Carlo Falcone also docked his yacht on Antigua \u2014 he was actually detouring quickly enroute to Guadeloupe. He was already working as a dockmaster and so cottoned on quickly to Antigua\u2019s potential for yachting at the time: charming, village-sized settlements ranged around a pair of deep-water harbors. So upped and moved here, scraping up enough money to buy the local marina \u2014 which he still owns.<\/p>

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Bikes and boats and bruschetta, oh my! A cyclist overlooks Italian-infused English Harbour.<\/figcaption>
\u00a9 Simply Antigua Barbuda<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now a wealthy local businessman and his country\u2019s honorary vice-consul, Falcone says he, Caputo and co consider it a homecoming. \u201cAntigua was named by an Italian, Cristoforo Colombo,\u201d he says, now a wealthy, \u201cYes, the English came with Nelson. But we were there before them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in the almost four decades since these two Italian entrepreneurs settled on Antigua, they\u2019ve lured more and more of their countrymen to join them. Giorgio Armani and Stefano Gabbana both own houses nearby, as does Silvio Berlusconi; he regularly moored the superyacht he bought from Rupert Murdoch, the Morning Glory, here, too.<\/p>

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Indeed, it was Berlusconi\u2019s close friendship with Lester Bird, the charismatic former prime minister of Antigua, which helped encourage both investment and tourism from Italy in the last decade and accelerated the stealth Italian takeover.<\/p>\n

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Falmouth Harbour is rich in views and Naples-worthy pizza.<\/figcaption>
Roddy Grimes-Graeme<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Caputo says Antigua\u2019s resemblance to some of Italy\u2019s rocky outposts helped it seem homey, notably the ultra-chic Pantelleria island, between Sicily and north Africa (Armani has a home there, too) \u201cLook at the rocks, crumbling and yellow, it\u2019s the same sort of tufo, and the ocean looks very alike in a certain way. It\u2019s very Mediterranean,\u201d says Angelo Caput, adding that its scarcity of fresh water is a parallel, too.<\/p>

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