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.
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| 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.
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| Sea turtle rescue! We found three floating mid ocean - gave them away to kids |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Porto Azzura |
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| 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…
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| Pizza - simple and perfect |
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Portoferraio
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| Beer Blogger hard at work |
