Exiled on Elba : Napoleon left lasting impression on his littlest empire

I stood on the deck of the enormous ferry, watching Elba’s capital city come into view, trying to imagine how Napoleon Bonaparte must have felt as he sailed into this port more than 180 years before. Portoferraio greeted me as it does thousands of vessels and millions of visitors each year: peering from behind her rocky, industrial veil and winking with pledges of quiet Mediterranean beauty and intriguing island history. Her promises were not empty.

I would like to say that I stumbled across the tiny fish-shaped island by serendipity, fell in love and decided to stay, but that would not be completely correct. Hardly anyone stumbles across Elba, but many who end up here fall in love, stay awhile and, if they’re smart, eventually return.

Elba was not on my list when I made my vacation plans. Nor was it on my mind when I landed in Rome last summer. For good reason. I didn’t even know Elba was part of Italy or, more specifically, the Tuscan Archipelago, until I leafed through a guidebook while standing on the bank of the Arno River in Florence. Fortunately, several events interrupted my well-laid plans, prompting my visit to the third largest Italian isle, behind Sicily and Sardinia.

A friend who was to meet me in Venice canceled at the last minute, and in Venice I was put out on the streets when my hotel reservation turned out to be for two nights, rather than the three I’d been guaranteed. Other hotels in town were sold out.

These misfortunes resulted in my having extra time and no need to adhere to a particular schedule. Plus I had a yen to visit a beautiful, historic destination that rhymed with my name. Surely, it was fate.

“I want to go to Elba,” I told the concierge at my hotel.

“But of course, signora,” he said. “Is very beautiful, Elba.”

A prime vacation resort for Europeans, who prefer its provincial charm to other more polished Mediterranean resorts, Elba is just enough off the beaten path to discourage some travelers.

To reach it, I took the train from Florence west to Pisa, then another south to Campiglia, where I changed trains again for the 20-minute ride to Piombino, the unimpressive wharf town where I caught the ferry to Elba. The pleasant ferry ride took about an hour (it’s only 30 minutes if you go by hydrofoil) to Portoferraio, the island’s main port and most populous city.

I stepped, bone weary, off the ferry to begin my search for a room just as the tourist office was opening.

“A room,” I said to a friendly man behind the counter. I had made notes on several.

After a few calls, he found a double for me at the Nuova Padulella for $60 a night, including breakfast and dinner.

“From here it’s only about a five-minute walk,” he said, directing me to the street.

That short walk turned out to be a taxing trek, more than a mile uphill. Still dressed for the air-conditioned train in the bright morning sun, I arrived sweating, dropped my backpack and collapsed into a chair in the comfortable lobby.

The concierge smiled and asked, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” “Francais?,” the queries indicating to me the paucity of American tourists. In all my Italian travels, Elba was the only place where the U.S. dollar was not listed first on the exchange posting. Nor was it second or third.

After settling into my spare but clean room, I walked back into town to rent a scooter from one of the many places along the waterfront. After a bit of haggling, the owner and I settled on $20 a day, a price similar to what other scooter places were charging. But when I repeatedly asked him to point out the gas, brake and clutch controls, he tried to amend the deal, obviously concerned about the safe return of the scooter. But I refused to pay the additional $70 deposit that he demanded and walked, instead, to the main bus station. This, too, was serendipitous.

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I found it in the center of Portoferraio, next to the ferry landing and tourist office. From there, buses leave for everywhere on the island. I headed west.

Winding through the narrow coastal and mountain roads, I was relieved I had not taken a scooter.

Five and a half miles from mainland Italy, heavily forested Elba has 90 miles of coastline, more than 50 beaches and 3,000-foot mountains. Vineyards, olive groves and fig trees span the horizons. Sheep and goat farms speckle the countryside. To reach the top of Mt. Capenne, the island’s highest point, it’s possible to take a cable car. The reward is a spectacular view of the Italian coastline and Corsica, Napoleon’s birthplace.

Elba’s history is as diverse as its landscape. In Greek mythology, Jason anchored the Argo here while searching for the Golden Fleece. St. Paul spread the Gospel here. The Etruscan people held it. The Romans colonized it. It was given to the Republic of Pisa by a pope, captured by Genoa, sold to Lucca, claimed by the Spaniards, raided by the Turks, and held by the British until Napoleon conquered Italy. The change of possession alone is enough to leave you dizzy. Yet with all this, Elba’s greatest claim to fame is the 10-month residence of an undersized, overambitious French emperor who was exiled here after abdicating in 1814.

Napoleon’s likeness adorns food containers, water and wine bottles, and just about any other product imaginable. Hotels, schools, streets, piazzas and restaurants bear his name. Nothing but the proliferation of Elvis memorabilia in Memphis could possibly come close.

The emperor was coldly received by the Elbans, but he swiftly won both their hearts and the distinction of being their best governor. Before his arrival, Elba was a seedy, one-inn port whose people had been conquered, killed or carried off as slaves. The island could boast natural resources, but little else. The roads were barely passable, and the sewage system was dangerously unsanitary, resulting in the easy spread of disease.

Bored by the lack of activity in his small empire, Napoleon set out to modernize the island, while secretly plotting his return to France. He hinted his intent in a letter to a friend: “Once you’ve set the machinery of civilization going, there’s nothing left but to die of sheer boredom--or to get away from it by some heroic venture.” Even though he chose the latter, the people’s gratitude for his achievements far outweighs any bitterness about his motives.

Today, one can visit the Palazzina Napoleonica dei Mulini, Napoleon’s 12-room palace in Portoferraio, where his staff of 60 was quite a comedown from the hundreds of attendants he enjoyed at the 1,800-room Fontainebleau palace. Nevertheless, Mulini’s modest furnishings are interesting, comparatively speaking, for what they say about Napoleon’s drastic change in lifestyle, as a result of his fall from power in France after his disastrous Russian campaign. A display of political cartoons mocking his exile and an Elban flag that he designed are also worth noting.

The other Napoleon museum of note is Villa San Martino, his summer home, near the village of San Martino. On display in this simple house is Napoleon’s short bed--a reflection of his diminutive height--and frescoes of his Egyptian campaign painted by his official court painter, Vincenzo Antonio Revelli, in 1814.

Both Mulini and Martino are open daily.

Although the tourist season begins here at Easter, Elba is pleasant and uncrowded until July and August, when three-quarters of its annual 2 million visitors--primarily Italians and Germans, according to local tourist officials--descend upon the island of 30,000. But even when crowds are present to push up prices, hotel and food rates remain lower than in mainland Italy. On Elba, for example, I paid about 75 cents for a liter of bottled water that had cost me almost $2 in Florence.

I found as much to do (or as little) as I liked, including hiking, windsurfing, golf, scuba diving and sailing. A walk along the Marina di Campo beach turned up countless places for water instruction and equipment rental. The exclusive resorts along Biodola Bay, west of Portoferraio, offer tennis and horseback riding.

One of my few quibbles was that the restaurant selection seemed somewhat limited. I was told that this is because most hotels include meals with the price of the room, especially during the summer. Food was a combination of the widely available fresh seafood and hearty Tuscan cuisine. Prawns, squid with risotto, stuffed zucchini, baked fish and grilled lamb are island specialties. Except for one night out, I had all meals in my hotel, where dinner--three courses with a choice of meat, fish or pasta--was good and always fresh.

For convenience, there is hardly a bad location on the island, so next time I’m there I will choose my hotel based on the terrain, type of accommodation and number of people I’m in the mood to be around. The western part of Elba is more sparsely populated and has great beaches while the eastern and northern sections are green and wooded.

The fishing village of Marciana Marina, resplendent with magnolias and palms, is the oldest continuously inhabited town on Elba and a departure point for the village of Marciana Alta, where you will find the Museo Civico Archeologico, which houses exhibits from Etruscan ships wrecked off the coast.

Popular with families and campers is Marina di Campo, one of Elba’s most celebrated beaches, on the southwest coast. It is so jammed with umbrellas, chairs and sun worshipers in summer that it is tempting to skip it. Don’t. Go at sunrise or just after sunset and listen to the caressing sounds of the ocean. Hotels on the beach rent deck chairs, umbrellas and changing cabins, all of which should be booked in advance during the summer.

Porto Azzurro, on the southeast coast, is a fortified 16th century town and the location of Porto Longone prison, formerly a Spanish fort.

The town’s cobbled streets and good restaurants add to the draw of its beaches. From here it’s possible to take a daylong boat excursion south to the island of Montecristo, the boyhood home of Victor Hugo, setting of Alexandre Dumas’ novel “The Count of Montecristo” and now a wildlife preserve.

“Lucky Napoleon,” wrote the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas while on sabbatical here.

Apparently Napoleon disagreed and escaped Elba to try to reclaim his kingdom, if only for 100 days until he was again exiled, this time to St. Helena, an island in the South Atlantic.

Unlike Napoleon, I knew what was waiting for me as I waved goodbye to the island, lump in throat.

Aaah, to be exiled in Elba.

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GUIDEBOOK: Napoleon’s Elba

Getting there: Alitalia has nonstop service to Rome; Continental, Delta, KLM, Lufthansa, Northwest, Swissair, TWA, United have service with one change of planes. Advance-purchase, round-trip fares start at $1,100. From Rome take the train to Pisa; first-class fare about $100, round trip. Transfer to Piombino for ferry to Portoferraio; about $15 round trip.

Where to stay: Nuova Padulella, Viale Einaudi I, Portoferraio; rates: about $85 per person, including breakfast; tel. 011-39-565-91-4742.

Montecristo, Via Nomellini 11, Campo Nell Elba; rates: $75-$120 per person, including breakfast; tel. 011-39-565-97-6861.

Park Hotel Napoleone, San Martino; rates: $110 per person, including breakfast; tel. 011-39-565-91-8502.

Where to eat: Rosticceria Il Gastronomo, Via del Sette 10, Marciana Marina; pasta and seafood; dinner with wine about $15 per person.

Moped and bike rentals: Rent Chiappi, Calata Italia 30, Portoferraio; about $20 for a day’s moped rental; $12 for bike rental.

For more information: Italian Government Tourist Board, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles 90025, (310) 820-0098; fax (310) 820-6357.

--M.N.