Retiring in italy giorno di giorno: Happy Birthday on Isola d' Elba

View of ferry and Portoferraio from our hotel on Elba

Hard to believe I just had my second birthday since relocating to Italy already. Last year we celebrated at the Tuscan coast, known as the Costa degli Etruschi, at a town called Castiglione della Pescaia. This year we opted for a week on Elba Island, famed for having been briefly ruled by Napoleon and for having been his prison for about a year. The heat wave continues, with temperatures of 95+, so a beach vacation seemed like a great idea (although calling it a vacation may be a misnomer since essentially every day is a vacation for us).

First problem, the car rental place was very slow in getting us our car, which is not surprising. However, I thought I had factored in enough time for that, but I seriously underestimated the exte nt of the delay (an hour) and of the summer traffic and the long lines at the toll stations. It became clear we were not going to make our 1:30 ferry to the island. I had visions of not being able to get on a ferry for the whole week-end and being stuck in Piombino without a hotel. The coast is very, very busy during a heat wave in July. I called Blu Navy to see if we could change to the next ferry, not really thinking it would be possible, and eccola! No problem, they changed it immediately, no extra charge, texted the new ticket, and we were in business. There are 3 or 4 ferry lines servicing Elba, but they were all packed, and we were lucky to get a last minute reservation on the 4 pm ferry. The ferry attendants were all young, tanned, good looking Italian boys. I was tempted to take photos but it seemed a little too creepy.

Our Elba hotel, Paradiso del Grotte, turned out to be connected with a German yachtschule, or sailing school. Pretty much everyone else at the hotel was german, it was odd to hear more german than italian, and the staff kept talking to us in German! We had half board, meaning breakfast and dinner at the hotel. Breakfast was sad. Each morning, by the time we got there, almost everything was gone, the ravaging horde of sailors hit the tables at 7:30. Dinner was better except on buffet-karaoke nights, with loud and bad karaoke blasting until after midnight.

However, Elba is beautiful, with many beaches, cliffs, viewpoints, and gelatto stands, all the requisites for a good vacation. There is even a thriving Elba wine industry, and we sampled several different Elba wines, all in the interest of research of course. Elba prosecco has an interesting aroma, smoky and caramel, but it was good. We enjoyed swimming from the hotel beach, where we had free sunloungers and umbrellas.