Elba Travel Guide
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12km (7 miles) off the coast at Piombino; 86km (53 miles) S of Livorno; 179km (111 miles) SW of Florence; 231km (143 miles) NW of Rome
Elba is a proletarian resort, visited mainly by middle-class Italian families and German tourists, who together fill just about every available inch of hotel and camping space in August and September. What Elba lacks in the glamour department, it makes up for in variety. It's Italy's third-largest island, but at about 27km by 18km (17 miles by 11 miles), it's much smaller than Sicily or Sardinia. So while it has a tall mountainous interior speckled with ancient mining villages, the sea is never far away. Coastal fishing and port towns in soft pastels are interspersed with modest sandy beaches.
The Greeks founded the first large-scale settlements here in the 10th century B.C., calling the island Aethalia after the Greek word for sparks, a reference to the dozens of forges sailors could see winking throughout the night. The forges were smelting iron ore, one of the hundreds of minerals that make up the fabric of Elba. After an Etruscan interlude, the Romans, calling it Ilva, used its raw iron to forge the swords with which they conquered their empire. The island was raided by pirates (including Barbarossa) and split between Italian and Spanish rules until the 18th century, but mining remained at the core of Elban economy for about 3,000 years until the easily accessible iron finally ran out. The last iron mine shut down in 1984.
When would-be emperor of Europe Napoléon Bonaparte was first defeated, he was exiled to Elba to rule as the island's governor. Beginning May 3, 1814, the Corsican general busied himself with revamping the island's economy, infrastructure, and mining system -- perhaps out of nation-building habit or merely to keep himself and his 500-man personal guard occupied. Napoléon managed to be a good boy until February 26, 1815, at which point the conquering itch grew too strong and he sailed ashore to begin the famous Hundred Days that ended in his crushing defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The island is proud to have had, no matter how briefly, a resident of such considerable note, and preserves his two villas and various other mementos of the Napoleonic era.
