Guide Lines

Press, 1 November 1977, Page 25

Guide Lines

no chances. Napoleon was sent a prisoner to the remote island of St Helena, in the South Atlantic, and Elba, after its year of fame, relapsed into the tranquil Mediterranean sunshine.

Elba, and the six smaller islands which make up the Tuscan archipelago, have a variegated history stretching back to the Phonecians, the Greeks, and the Etruscans who gave Tuscany its name. For a time Elba was a private domain of the powerful Medici family in Florence. Modem times have treated the island harshly. In 1944, after it was occupied by German paratroops, Elba was bombed heavily by the Americans and British.

In June that year Free French forces drove out the Germans after two days of heavy fighting. The victorious

French announced that the island and its people were to be given over to “the spoils, of war.” Moroccan and Senegalese soldiers ran amuck and their French officers finally had to shoot down their own men to end the orgy of rape and pillage.

As though this was not enough, the surviving Italian inhabitants were told, when the war was over, that the island’s only industry, a steel mill, was uneconomic and would not be rebuilt. They have been left with tourism as their only industry ever since.

But it this book is a fair guide, Elba and its tiny neighbours have finally prospered. A balmy climate, sweeping beaches, rich and historic scenery, and unspoilt countryside have combined to attract thousands of visitors every summer. Portoferraio. the Elban capital, is served by car ferries and hydrofoils from Piombino, south of Pisa, on the Italian mainland. Elba now has nearly 200 hotels and a variety of motels, camping sites, and holiday flats. The island is 18 miles long and vanes

from three to 13 miles wide. It is latticed with walking tracks and reasonable roads. The surface is crumpled into an extraordinary variety of peaks and valleys which form one of the most romantic landscapes in southern Europe. This elaborate handbook is a mine of information about the past and present of Elba; about how to get there and what to see. It ranges widely from an account of the geological wealth of an island which has been called a “natural museum” to directions on how to find the emergency clinic at the public hospital. For visitors to Italy travelling between Rome and Pisa or Florence, a detour to Elba would be an unusual and rewarding step back into a little empire that once had Napoleon as its master.