Cosimo de' Medici founded it in 1548 as Cosmopoli, an ideal stronghold whose star bastions survive intact; three centuries later Napoleon landed as an exiled emperor and for ten months — May 1814 to February 1815 — ruled Elba from the villas of the Mulini and San Martino, now national museums with relics and library.
The nineteenth-century harbour receives the ferries in a theatre of pastel houses; the white beaches of Sansone and Capo Bianco are minutes away. The island's hardworking capital, Portoferraio is the key to any Elban holiday — and a town deserving more than a transit.
Near Portoferraio
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
