Playground of the stars
Follow the glitterati – and the geologists – on a weekend break to this hidden hotspot, just an hour’s ferry ride from Rome, writes
Jones.
TGriff Rhys
he local paper was breathless with excitement: ‘‘Rihanna, sirena sexy, a Ponza!’’ it shrieked. And me too! I was in Ponza as well! Though 24 hours ago I hadn’t even known the place existed. (Mind you, I am pretty shaky on the exact status of Rihanna).
The Pontine Islands are a dragonbacked scattering of humps sticking out of the sea south of Rome, where those in the know (which means knowing that they exist) take cool weekend breaks – including Beyonce and Jay Z. And, of course, Rihanna – ‘‘sirena sexy’’. Given that the main island was, according to the New York Times, ‘‘a real treat for geologists’’, this was an insight into the leisure requirements of some of our more celebrated recording stars.
This nine-kilometre strip of rock is generally accepted to have been the summer home not of the Sirens but of the witch Circe (who, in Greek mythology, ensnared Odysseus for a bit). The main harbour town clings to a perilously high cliff rising around a bay. It feels more Greek than Italian.
Its vertiginous paths rival Santorini. I have never peered over a wall to see a back garden quite so very far below me. Prepare to abseil back to the port from your boutique hotel if you must. But be ready to clamber.
Leaving the harbour, a cascade of steps and tiny narrow passageways led us ever upwards. We were searching for a place to stay. The passages were so narrow that, near the top, we were startled to meet an enterprising citizen trying to poke his Alfa Romeo down the hill. Stranded cars, seemingly parked up there before the rest of the citadel was built, nestled on lonely pinnacles. How did they get there? What were they for?
The town reminded me of Porto Venere, the gateway to the Cinque Terre, some 482km to the north, but it lacked that city’s dignity. In Porto Venere, the higher you clamber, the greater the peace – a fine Romanesque church, an imposing and empty castle and, above that, empty woods. In Ponza we found only rubbish bins and desolation.
The Moorish maze on a cliff tempted us upwards, but we ran into chain-link fencing and empty lots – the lair of the witch. The boutique villa we were searching for proved impossible to find, except by error. We finally happened upon it, way off the mark, down a side alley, Google having been rendered useless by the interlocking contours of the village. It was full.
Turning around and looking back, though, we got the full romantic measure of this place: the close village and the domed church, the pink and yellow blocks of villa. A latticed, ornate framework for firecrackers, climbing along the town balcony overlooking the deep sheltered harbour, was awaiting a coming festival. A water tanker had anchored far below in the bay. The cliffs and escarpments soared against a glowing blue sky. Ponza was warm and magnificent – glowing with rugged heat in the late sun and begging to be explored further, even if that was going to prove difficult.
On the way to these islands, leaving Rome on a whim and sailing on a boat, we had taken on a tired songbird. It landed first on my wife and then on a winch, which dwarfed its minuscule, short-tailed frame.
‘‘It’s an African bee-eater,’’ I pronounced. It was, in fact, a flycatcher. Close enough, I thought.
After half an hour, it took off again and flopped straight into the sea. Then miraculously rose and headed north. We feared certain death, except that somewhere out of sight it circled around and came back and eventually hid below deck.
As we slipped through the channel to the east of Ponza, the bird popped its head out and got to land ahead of us. It needed Ponza. And you need to be a bird to get the most out of the rocky fastness of these volcanic remnants. Much of it is simply unreachable and best observed from the sea.
The whole Pontine archipelago is spread over quite an area. There are two unvisited and uninhabited outcrops on either side of Ponza, called Palmarola and Zannone. You can take boat trips to get closer to them but you can’t land. The other inhabited island is called Ventotene and issome 32km south on a direct line to Ischia, off Naples. It’s a separate holiday altogether.
There are a few urban distractions in the village on the main island. In Eea, an excitingly named restaurant halfway up the holiday Matterhorn, my companion Edward got himself a plate of risotto. It was rice. That’s the ‘‘ris’’ bit. The ‘‘otto’’ flavour was described as ‘‘mugs of algae’’ which proved to be a vaguely green-tasting fishy goo.
I had ‘‘flag fish’’.
‘‘What’s that?’’ I asked.
‘‘A fish with flags.’’ Edward shrugged.
I asked for clarification from the waiter.
‘‘Triglia is triglia,’’ he said, impatiently.
‘‘OK.’’
It was red snapper. We were happy to wait in Eea. The view was soothing. The restaurant wasn’t poncey. Our food, when it came, was excellent.
What draws us to islands? The insularity? The noisy ferry port? The limited horizon that corresponds to our limited holiday availability? If you have an urge to buy a gold string bikini, then Ponza will provide. Otherwise, simply be on holiday. There’s nothing else to buy.
The dusty museum had closed long ago. Every walk seemed to lead to a dead end or directly back to where you started. To get more out of Ponza, we needed to venture further.
These high, humpbacked volcanic outcrops must have frustrated the exiled (who were shipped out here by the Ancient Romans and, more recently, by the fascists). The sheer cliffs limit access to the beaches. But a fleet of ‘‘gommi’’ transports and bum boats line up along the old fishing