Italy Guide
Tuscany
Elba
Mountainous ELBA is Italy's third-largest island – 29km long by some 19km wide. It has exceptionally clear water, fine white-sand beaches, and a lush, wooded interior, superb for walking, and though it's now well and truly embracing package tourism, almost everyone comes for the beach resorts – even in the height of summer, inland villages remain mostly quiet. Portoferraio is very much the capital, an attractive port overlooked by a warren of old alleys. Elsewhere, the most attractive towns are Capoliveri and Porto Azzurro in the southeast and little Marciana in the west, the last of these providing access to woodland hikes and the impressive chair lift up to Monte Capanne (1018m). Biòdola occupies an idyllic sweeping bay near Portoferraio that is largely free from the island's otherwise remorseless beach culture. You can also take a ferry from Portoferraio or Porto Azzurro to various smaller islands.
All seven Tuscan Islands, and the seas around them, form the Parco Nazionale dell'Arcipelago Toscano, the largest protected marine park in Europe, with a helpful, slick and high-tech new information office at Calata Italia 31 ( 
0565.919.411, 
www.isoleditoscana.it ), just along from the main tourist information office in Portoferraio. It's here that you should also enquire about the possibility of visiting the beautiful Island of Pianosa, only recently opened up to limited numbers of visitors after a past as a military base. The rocky island has good beaches, abundant wildlife and no resident humans.
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