Pianosa, July 20, 2005
A visit to the island of Elba is not worthy of the name should not accomplished a trip to Pianosa. Perhaps we are the innocent victims of television documentaries that tell a wonderful place. In fact ...
sail in one of the fastest motor boats that exist in Italy. So much the better, in one hour we will be at destination. Pianosa was an island-prison, and for this reason it has maintained almost intact its habitat, especially as regards the sea. Our guide, which is inevitable because it is forbidden to visit the island if not, tells us immediately that we are on an island on which almost everything is forbidden, except just the tours and the bathroom in the enchanting Cala Giovanna. In addition to paying the parcels feel, as it happens usually in these group rides, we are also a bit 'prisoners on this small island, luxury, of course. Even if they meet the real prisoners running their restaurant and our meetings will not be worse, as we shall soon see. The village resembles a ghost
those abandoned villages of the Far West. The artifacts are of a style that is eclectic to say the least defined. They are not crumbling when they fall to pieces, only resists the wall of the prison, built in rock-solid concrete. The cells are now empty, all the buildings are unsafe, crops were abandoned, dry walls again become stones. After logging of oaks worked in the past centuries to make way for agriculture, only remain parched stubble and weeds that you replace the undergrowth of Mediterranean type. Pianosa continues the worse the general sloppiness that transmit some buildings Elba, not some restored, others sprung up illegally to be enjoyed in the face of the wild coasts. The name derives from the Latin Planasia islet, which indicates that this is indeed an island of very flat, flat really. There is no relief to a few meters above sea level, on the contrary, the Elbe and its towering Tabernacles. Is different as well as its genesis and composition of the soil, born of age-old accumulation of marine deposits. A dive mask and fins makes us enjoy the advantages of white settlement seabed Cala Giovanna. We start kicking around the rocks, since it is precisely in this area that should be the fish, we are actually in an aquarium Mediterranean, never seen elsewhere. Grouper, sea bream fed well, some great, keep us company along with colorful fish that resemble exotic parrot fish. Just dig his finger on the vegetation of the cliffs to see them panting to search for food among suspension. Small grasslands of Poseidon blacken the white sandy bottom of a deep, bright, exotic location. Admire the Tyrrhenian Sea tones "Maldivian" does something, as a show of its kind we used in our massacred coasts. The pine forest behind dell'azzurrissimo sea is by far the most heavenly place on the island: shadow constantly refreshed by sea breezes, scented Mediterranean vegetation, already so odorous in the summer, who knows what in the spring.
choose to ride in a minibus in the wildest part of Pianosa, in the handle of the pan, quaint but effective image with which the guide will show you the shape of the island. He explains that all staff of the restaurant comes from the pine forest near the Porto Azzurro prison as prisoners or ex such. Former inmates who find themselves working in a former prison nemesis twist of fate or history?
Meanwhile, the small bus along a paved road that enters a square enclosed by high walls. On the left a small church built from the ceiling partially collapsed in 1943, on the right a building that houses a photo exhibition on the island landscapes taken over the years. After passing a gate of the walls of reinforced concrete, the asphalt gives way to dirt. The road is protected by stone walls are not always intact, as mentioned above. Strange to say, it is easier to admire the wildlife in this part of the island on board the vehicle in which we human beings, frightening for the game, remain hidden, camouflaged in their eyes. Here is a colorful bird, must be an eater. Then a pheasant, two Fagiani (pardon!), a long snake, rat snake, which runs off waving, he frightened by the roar of the vehicle. Of course you need to hear the aliens that explore a world unknown to them, we on the bus with tinted windows and air conditioning with the wilderness that runs on windows with polarized light as in a film of a multiplex cinema. We are given some rest and during one of these a sweaty lady so fat as petulant, urges our guide allowed a bathroom in a beautiful natural bay in the north-west. How to blame her, the place is beautiful and probably will remain so if no human will dive in these waters intact, let alone the sweaty tourists-matrons. During a stop at a lookout point we admire the rich Mediterranean flora, limited in the set from the soil alkaline, sometimes raging winds and isolation of the place. Nevertheless, there grows a lush rosemary-scented sea salt, juniper a Marine, a multitude of thistles and chamomile, as well as various aromatic plants, including fragrant Alisso. Meanwhile, a pleasure boat gets too close to the coast and a patrol boat, out of nowhere, the joins. We will understand after a few days the reason for this rather than military surveillance ... Super ecological buildings, water tanks and fuel and other construction for various uses, all battered, I would say shooting. There is something melancholy in
Pianosa: not exactly a picturesque village or militarized island, but a kind of ghost town with an eclectic and other smaller settlements more scattered to the north. The former prison-style enclave is more homogeneous and gray.
It is not clear what the fate of the artefacts. In a few years, a few, will collapse, it makes sense to renovate expand the tourism offer? Or would it be better to leave the island to maintain in full feral marine park? Dilemma. The catacombs, the largest among those in the north of Rome, are accessible because they do not need maintenance. What will happen to the remains of Roman times? Other buildings? The colorful town? The houses are crumbling helpless by the bombing of the time and unforgiving weather. It preserves what keeps the sea, they are left in ruins man's works, except the remote-controlled torpedo punts that are proudly displayed in the village square, under the watchful eye of American soldiers (and what are they doing here?). Giocattoloni yellow, as we will discover in the following days by newspapers, which serve to formally study the Poseidon, but we know very well be tested to blast thousands of feet deep. That's why Harbour patrol boats around the island are so zealous, close to which is "grounded" a U.S. warship! The "algae" can not afford to be spied on by the curious, in spite of the Regional Park ...
A last swim in the white backdrop of the enchanting waters pianosine and then restarted. The tourists are packed and shipped at the time of the Elbe. Less cynical than usual this time we felt less tourists and more visitors. Maybe because those are the most tired and petulant rocked hours dozing by the Mistral. The island is lost in the haze of the sunset, only the wake of the boat connects us with her again. Farewell, Planas, beautiful and wild.
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