Island of Elba

This time we are going a bit further afield, taking a trip by car for almost three hours to the Tuscan port of Piombino and then by ferry to Portoferraio on the wonderful Island of Elba.  Vito and I went there in 2006, finally getting a 10-day honeymoon albeit eight years after our wedding, but it was worth the wait.  The island is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to, and I’d like to show you some of the places we saw.  We went in mid September, which is a time I can recommend.  The weather was still good for most of the time, the prices lower as the height of the season was over, and there were no crowds as many tourists had already gone home. The car journey from Rome through Tuscany to Piombino was quite a revelation in itself. I was amazed at how the landscape differed once outside Lazio, but as Vito pointed out, until recently (in historical terms), the Italian regions were separate and independent states and so would look different. At Piombino, which translates as “plumb-bob” we headed straight for the docks.  After a while our colourful ferry arrived,

Our colourful ferry

and within a short time we were on our way. The first point of Elba you can see as you approach the island is Cavo. 

First view of Elba (Cavo)

The ferry then works its way round the coast towards Portoferraio.  The journey takes about an hour.  We had our own car with us, so we didn’t have to mess about finding taxis to take us to our hotel, which we knew was a short drive from the port.  It took us ten minutes to get there, but we later found out that that same journey during peak season would have taken the best part of 1.5 hours!  That’s how packed the island gets, so be warned if you are thinking of going there in the high season.  As we had waited for our honeymoon for so long, we didn’t stint on the place where we stayed. 

The hotel where we stayed in its own private bay!

This is it, a hotel that was once a beautiful family villa in beautiful grounds with its own beach with a view across the bay of Portoferraio.

View across the bay to Portoferraio from the hotel

The weather for the most part was good. It was certainly warm. It rained on three or four days and so we took advantage of the wet weather to go exploring the island. This also explains why most of my photos have a grey sky!   Elba is small enough to drive to any part comfortably within a day.   Of course the first and nearest place to see was Portoferraio itself where we sometimes used to go for lunch.  Places of interest to see here include the villas where Napoleon was imprisoned before he famously escaped, and later went on to lose at Waterloo and was then incarcerated on the much less hospitable island of St. Helena.  There is a museum along this

Portoferraio

road with all things Napoleon, and further up the hill one of the two villas Napoleon stayed in.  It was difficult to photograph the villa, called Villa dei Mulini (“Villa of the Windmills”). You can read up more about it here if you are interested) but this is a view he would have had from round the corner.

View near Napoleon's villa

The villa was a bit disappointing in some ways as it was filled with furniture from the period, but not actually his own, but one thing I did find fascinating were the report books.  These were open in cases and were filled with reports written to Napoleon by his underlings, and he had actually written comments in answer to some of their points in the margins alongside.  For me, it really made the man come alive and made him seem much more real somehow.  Portoferraio, named for the iron that was found there centuries ago (ferro is iron in Italian), is also a very pretty town in its own right.  Overlooking the bay, the town goes up seemingly forever. 

We stopped for lunch (and a rest!) at the top - so we thought until we got there!

We stopped at the place you can see at the top of this picture for lunch no so much from choice but because we were absolutely exhausted!   On reaching it though we found we found we were only halfway up!  Pretty views from there though.

View from the restaurant

One of the first places we went to visit while we were on Elba was the small seaside resort of Marciana Marina,

Marciana Marina

about 16 Kms. away from Portoferraio along a stunning coast road.  Mercifully on the flat, we often went for lunch there too to a small restaurant we found where Vito swore they made the “best Roman pizza ever!”  Again an incredibly pretty place,

Marciana Marina with its clear water

with such clear water it looked as though it had just been poured out of a tap!   Other days saw us go past beautiful stretches of coast such

Near Bagnaia

as that near Bagnaia, Rio Nell'Elba,

Rio Nell'Elba

Porto Azzurro

Porto Azzurro

and on to a personal favourite, Capolivieri,

Arriving at Capolivieri

a place which that day literally dripped charm

Capolivieri

as it was pouring with rain when we got there.

Capolivieri

Capolivieri in the rain

There are some stupendous beaches near there too. 

Beaches near Capolivieri

Another day took us to Cavo,

another pretty town on the “first contact point” between Elba and the mainland that I mentioned above.

Cavo looking out to sea

Cavo

Wherever we went we were never disappointed by the island’s breathtaking beauty.  Almost every turn around the coast road

Wow look at that!

had us crying out to each other ”Wow look at that!”

until in the end it became almost boring!   As often as not we didn’t stop at renowned beaches as we found they were frequently a climb down from the coast road and as we were usually on our way somewhere else, we didn’t take a closer look, but I’m sure they could only have been magnificent.  Have a look at any collection of photographs on the net about Elba and you can see for yourself.  I will leave you with one of the last views we had of Portoferraio as our ferry pulled out of the port back to Piombino and onward to home.  The picture may look a bit blurry, but so was my vision.  I cried all the way home! I really didn’t want to leave L

Last view of Portoferraio on the way home :(

If you want to know more about the beautiful Island of Elba you can read about it here and here