Palmarola, Italy
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Palmarola has no city and no roads. There is no electrical energy, no cell phone protection and no ferry terminal. On most days, the one option to attain the island is by small boat from Ponza, 5 miles away throughout the Tyrrhenian Sea.
It lies west of Rome, shut sufficient that it may be reached in a day journey however far sufficient eliminated in order that the Italian capital’s visitors, crowds and fixed movement really feel like a neighboring planet. While Rome’s boards, fountains and piazzas pull in thousands and thousands of holiday makers, Palmarola stays largely absent from itineraries. Many tourists by no means hear of it. Many Romans by no means go.
What attracts the individuals who do make the crossing will not be infrastructure or comfort, however the absence of each. Palmarola rises sharply from the water in volcanic cliffs, damaged by sea caves and slim inlets. There is a single seaside, a community of footpaths main inland, and little signal of contemporary improvement.
Reaching the island from Rome entails a prepare to the port of Anzio, a ferry to Ponza and then negotiating with a fisherman or personal boat proprietor for a experience in each instructions. With no everlasting residents, Palmarola is a vacation spot formed extra by climate, geology and seasons than by tourism.
There is one restaurant, O’Francese, that serves contemporary fish and rents out a restricted variety of primary rooms carved into previous fishermen’s grottoes alongside the cliffs. Guests guide months prematurely and keep on a full-board foundation, with nightly rooms beginning at 150 euros, or $175.
Maria Andreini, a 44-year-old distant IT employee from Treviso in northern Italy, visits Palmarola every summer season with her husband, Mario, a financial institution supervisor, and their 15-year-old son, Patrizio.
“There’s so much, and so little, to do,” she says. “We spend our days snorkeling and suntanning on the restaurant’s front beach, made of pink coral pebbles. At night we lie on the beach and stargaze, we walk around with torches. At dawn the owners wake us up to take us on a hiking trip to the isle’s highest peak to admire the sunrise. It’s stunning.”
Footpaths lead inland from the seaside, climbing towards the ruins of a medieval monastery and the stays of a prehistoric settlement.
“For dinner, we eat fresh fish from the net. For an entire week, we feel as if we’re living a primeval, castaway experience, a bit like being the Flintstones family on holiday,” says Andreini, who advises guests to carry climbing boots alongside with beachwear.
She says she has traveled broadly, together with to the Maldives, however finds Palmarola unmatched. Its surroundings is “spell-binding,” she provides, “and it’s in my backyard — Italy. Hard to believe we boast such a fantastic place.”
Beyond the principle seaside, the island’s shoreline is finest explored by dinghy. The cliffs kind sea stacks, tunnels, and grottoes, and the encircling waters appeal to snorkelers, canoeists, and scuba divers. The solely animals guests are more likely to encounter on land are wild goats, which shelter among the many low palms that give the island its title.
“It’s a trip back to prehistoric times when cave men flocked here in search of the precious jet-black obsidian stone, still visible in the cliff’s black streaks, used to make weapons and utensils,” native historian Silverio Capone tells NCS. “Very little has changed since then in the landscape.”
Capone lives on Ponza, the closest island, and the leaping off level for Palmarola, which he visits often, generally dropping off his teenage son for a wild tenting weekend with his mates. He says the island has lengthy remained unsettled.
“Palmarola has always been a desert isle, that’s what makes it special,” he says. “The Ancient Romans used it as a maritime strategic look-out post in the Tyrrhenian Sea for their imperial fleet, but they never colonized it.”
The island’s possession dates to the 18th century, when Neapolitan households despatched to colonize Ponza have been allowed to divide Palmarola amongst themselves. Today, it’s privately owned, cut up into quite a few parcels held by households nonetheless primarily based on Ponza.
Up on the cliffs, small caves have been transformed into easy personal dwellings, some painted white and blue. Fishermen traditionally used them as shelters throughout storms, and many homeowners nonetheless preserve them stocked with provides in case climate prevents a return to Ponza.
A small white chapel devoted to Saint Silverius stands atop a sea stack. Silverius, a sixth-century pope, was exiled to Palmarola and is believed to have died there.
Each June, fishermen sail from Ponza to Palmarola for the feast of San Silverio, carrying flowers to the chapel and parading a wood statue of the saint by boat. Participants take turns climbing steep rock steps to the best area of interest, the place the principle altar is positioned, to hope and meditate.
“It’s a sacred ritual. We pray to him every single day,” Capone says. “Many Ponza men, like myself, are named after the saint, who’s our patron. We believe his spirit still inhabits the waters of Palmarola.”
Local legends inform of sailors caught in storms who prayed to Saint Silverius and have been saved.
“An apparition of the saint, rising out of the waters, rescued them, guiding the sailors safely back to Palmarola, where they survived for weeks in the grotto shelters,” says Capone.