Isola d’Elba (pronounced Ee-so-la Del-ba) is the third-largest Italian island after Sicily and Sardinia, hour from Piombino on the Tuscan coast, and the island Napoleon governed for 300 days in 1814 before Waterloo. Family beaches on the west coast, iron-mining history on the east, and a growing Aleatico Passito wine scene inland.
Three stays we would book again.
Hotel Hermitage, Biodola
Elba’s grande dame on La Biodola bay, three private beaches, five restaurants, a nine-hole golf course. Ask for a Junior Suite in the main building; the bungalows in the pine grove get warm in July.
€340–€820 / night
USD 370–895 · April to October
Hotel Ilio, Sant’Andrea
Twenty rooms across three restored village houses in Sant’Andrea (pronounced Sant-An-dreh-a) on the northwest coast. Cove swimming off granite slabs; the walk from your room to the water is 90 seconds.
€180–€360 / night
USD 195–390 · granite-cove village
Locanda Sant’Anna, Poggio
Nine rooms above a village restaurant in Poggio, 350 metres up on Monte Capanne’s flank. Twenty-minute drive to Marciana Marina beach, the Aleatico vineyards start behind the kitchen garden.
€120–€220 / night
USD 130–240 · hillside guesthouse
Three practicalities that catch first-timers.
- Piombino to Portoferraio, hourly, take a car. Moby and Toremar traghetti run Piombino Marittima to Portoferraio every hour in summer, 1 hour 10 minutes, from around €15 foot-passenger and around €55 with a small car. Elba’s beaches are scattered; the car is the difference between four beaches and one.
- Sansone and Padulella beat Fetovaia in high season. Fetovaia is the poster beach and the most crowded. Sansone (white-pebble, north side of Portoferraio, 20-minute walk from parking) and Padulella next door are quieter and clearer. Bring reef shoes; both are pebble not sand.
- Napoleon’s houses are worth two hours, not two days. Villa dei Mulini in Portoferraio (his town house) and Villa San Martino above it (his country house) can be done in a joint morning. Combined ticket around €10. The Aleatico Passito tasting at Arrighi or Cecilia vineyards is a better afternoon.