Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In the 16th century, Cosimo I de' Medici grabbed territory in the north of the island,
where he founded the port town of Cosmopolis, today's Portoferraio.
EMPEROR NAPOLEON
At precisely 6pm on 3 May 1814, the English frigate
Undaunted
dropped anchor in the harbour of
Portoferraio on Elba. It bore an unusual cargo. Under the Treaty of Fontainebleau, the emperor Napo-
leon was exiled to this seemingly safe open prison, some 15km from the Tuscan coast.
It could have been so much worse for the emperor, but the irony for someone who hailed from Cor-
sica, just over the water, must have been bitter. Napoleon, the conqueror who had stridden across all of
Europe and taken Egypt, was awarded this little island as his private fiefdom, to hold until the end of
his days.
Elba would never quite be the same again. Napoleon, ever hyperactive, threw himself into frenetic
activity in his new, humbler domain. He prescribed a mass of public works, which included improving
the operations of the island's iron-ore mines - whose revenue, it is pertinent to note, now went his
way. He also went about boosting agriculture, initiating a road-building program, draining marshes
and overhauling the legal and education systems.
Some weeks after his arrival, his mother Letizia and sister Paolina rolled up. But he remained separ-
ated from his wife, Maria Luisa, and was visited for just two (no doubt hectic) days by his lover,
Maria Walewska.
At the Congress of Vienna, the new regime in France called for Napoleon's removal to a more dis-
tant location. Austria, too, was nervous. Some participants favoured a shift to Malta, but Britain objec-
ted and suggested the remote South Atlantic islet of St Helena. The Congress broke up with no agreed
decision.
Napoleon was well aware of the debate. Under no circumstances would he allow himself to be
shipped off to some rocky speck in the furthest reaches of the Atlantic Ocean. A lifelong risk taker, he
decided to have another roll of the dice. For months he had sent out on 'routine' trips around the
Mediterranean a couple of vessels flying the flag of his little empire, Elba. When one, the
Incostante,
set sail early in the morning of 26 February 1815, no one suspected that the conqueror of Europe was
stowed away on board. Sir Neil Campbell, his English jail warden, had returned to Livorno the previ-
ous day, confident that Napoleon was, as ever, fully immersed in the business of the island.
Napoleon made his way to France, reassumed power and embarked on the Hundred Days, the last
of his expansionist campaigns that would culminate in defeat at Waterloo, after which he got his At-
lantic exile after all, dying on St Helena in 1821, from arsenic poisoning - contracted, according to the
most accepted contemporary theory, probably from the hair tonic he applied to keep that famous quiff
glistening.
Activities
Make the tourist office in Portoferraio your first port of call for information on Elba's
many
walking
trails,
biking
paths and other outdoor activities; the visitors centre in Enfola
is particularly efficient and maps out a lovely circular walk around the cape starting from
