Porto di Roma to Elba

Grand sea views must be something we’ve only recently come to value. It seems that in the past, explorers would discover a lovely island or a dramatic bit of coastline and say to themselves, “This spot would make a splendid prison/asylum/leper colony/cemetery!” The island of Elba, largest of the Tuscan Islands, would have to be one of the world’s most beautiful prisons – though I suppose that’s a bit of a stretch as Napoleon had a pretty free range of the island and he was only here for nine months. The Elbans remember him fondly; an incurable leader, he organised to have roads built and reformed the punitive tax laws on the island. His death-mask has pride of place in the palazzo which is now a museum.

Elba - mountains, forests, clear blue bays

Our passage to Elba from Porto di Roma wasn’t ideal – sloppy short chop and variable winds all the way.  We bypassed Isola Giglio as the moorings didn’t look at all inviting, checking out the site of the Costa Concordia disaster on the way through. More slop and chop, then finally a couple of hours of sail until we put down the anchor in Porto Azzura, Elba, at 1700. Any excuse to get in the water, I checked our anchor and found a surprising bonus - right beneath us was a perfectly good mooring block, still with loop, but minus float! Terry hooked us up, we left the anchor down as a decoy and voila! We weren’t going anywhere.

 

Sea turtle rescue! We found three floating mid ocean - gave them away to kids

Rocks where the Costa Concordia struck

And that was just as well, as our second day saw the arrival of one of those sudden, spectacular thunder storms that appear out of nowhere in these parts, no doubt because of all the warm humid air being pushed up mountains and cooling quickly. Well this one precipitated great lumps of hail that really hurt when they hit you, but were handy for cooling the evening Aperols.

Thunderstorm - I snagged a lightning strike!

 

Porto Azzura is a stunning anchorage, with room for at least 100 boats at anchor –and that was just as well too, because the summer crowds were out in force. Despite this, Elba felt very relaxed and friendly – it is a fertile island and has a bit of a rural feel to it once you get away from the immediate waterfront in the main towns. We hopped on a local bus to see some of the countryside, which is mountains, forest and rich farmland, and the main ferry port at Portoferraio. The port is so named because Elba has some good iron ore deposits, which have been mined and shipped from here since ancient times – so this is where a few of those helmets, swords and bronze gods in the museums had their origins, perhaps.

Porto Azzura

Fertile farmlands in the valleys

Five days of exploring, swimming, reading and a few drinks and excellent meals ashore passed surprisingly quickly, as is the whole summer, in fact. So, with so much more of Italy still to see, we decided to park Common Sense in a low cost marina at the mouth of the Arno River for a week and jump on a train to Florence and Siena…

Pizza - simple and perfect

Portoferraio

 

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