| Newsletter December 2008
Palmarola, Italy's undiscovered island
Topic : Parks Nature
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Palmarola Island
From May to July and from early September, there are very few tourists on the pebbled beaches of the Pontine islands, and the only boats moored in the islands’ ports and bays are the small fishing vessels of the local islanders. In the springtime the feeling of putting your feet on a deserted island is enhanced is intensified and completed by the smell of sea and wild plants blended with one another. This is the season when Palmarola turns deep yellow and green and when wild flowers add fragrance blossoming into the sea wind. This is the kingdom of silence, solitude, emptiness and colorful wonders.
Palmarola is about seven miles away from Ponza and it is the second-largest of the Pontine Islands. It has a surfaced area of 136 hectares and the
highest point is Mt Guarniere (249 meters above the sea).
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The small island is considered by many the most splendid and hidden gem of the Mediterranean. The name of the island comes from its surviving population of dwarf palms which can be found on its hills and sheer cliffs over the sea. The history of Palmarola is linked to history by the name of Pope Silverius (later sanctified) who was sent in exile and then died here forgotten on the island. Since the ancient times, Palmarola was also a notorious harbor for pirates laying ambushes.
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If you love silence, nature and isolation, Palmarola is one of the most fascinating places you will find in the Mediterranean Sea. May to October is the best time of the year to be here (excluding August if you do not want many other boats around) as there is so much natural beauty to be explored and discovered; marine grottoes, inlets, sheer cliffs and secluded beaches. Many of the semi-hidden marine grottos are visible only from the sea and some tiny beaches are reachable only by boat.
If you do not own a boat, Palmarola can be visited during the summer with boat trips from the larger sister island of
Ponza .
At Ponza it is possible to find boats for hire who will take visitors on the island for a modest price. The best hours to leave Ponza and sail to Palmarola are those in the early morning, when the island awake under the refreshing morning breeze with the first rays of sun and there is only the sound of the seaguls in the sky.
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Palmarola has only one main secure approach, at Cala di Porto a large bay taking shape as a sort of natural port. It is the only safe dock on the island. The first idea coming to mind is to make a sunny stop, and swim in the beautiful bay. There are no specific tourist facilities and the island is uninhabited from October to April. Only in the summer two temporary beach restaurants with drinks and refreshments points are opened by islanders of the nearby of Ponza.
One of the two small bed and breakfast has few rooms to rent with potted flowers, line veranda and windowsills from May to September. They are perfect for whoever wishes to spend few days discovering Palmarola’s gorgeous sea and scenery starting from the beach. The beach with a half moon shape is also a wonder made of millions of large stones and smaller pebbles of many colors;
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the main color is grey in every possible variation with veins of manganese crystals sometimes resembling flowers, clouds and fantasy shapes and designs of any kind. Here and there, little black pebbles of obsidian, perfectly sphere-shaped and then again other stones green, reddish with veins of other different minerals.
If you are an adventurous type and make use of a sleeping bag it is possible to sleep on the island houses-caves carved in the rock and abandoned by the seamen that tried to repopulate Palmarola in the 17th century. Outside the natural port, on the stack of St. Silverio there is the chapel with the statue of the saint and an ancient oil lamp that devotees keep constantly lit. The chapel was built by Ponza’s islanders.
This tiny island was renowned to sailors already in ancient times for the variety of its coastline and for its dangerous and narrow passages where only very small boats can pass through. People who are lucky enough to sail can enjoy the discovery of Palmarola’s amazing marine beauty and secluded coves where sailing, swimming and snorkeling is an authentic joy. The water is so transparent that the boats floating in the underground marine pools seem suspended by the thin ropes that moor them to the rocks.
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Divers can find here the full beauty of an unspoiled seabed and clear waters surrounding this tiny island exploring the unique rocks’ shapes, colors and variety of its marine life. For all the people who love sea, sailing and boating in the natural silence the smaller Pontine islands like Palmarola are the ultimate choice. Here in this sea the silence is broken only by the sound of wind, waves and marine birds,
The island is rich of pure obsidian rocks, is in its natural form, brilliant and black. The island’s rocks are dotted with obsidian, forming black shapes on ochre colored rocks. These spectacular and unique combinations of volcanic rocks formation are found in no other place of the Mediterranean. Primitive Italic populations used to make spears, axes, knives from it and they seemed to be perfectly aware that Palmarola was plenty of it. Archeologists found out that the obsidian extracted from Palmarola was worked in the nearby Ponza and in Zannone. In fact, remains have been found it in those neighboring islands. Researchers discovered that finished products were then transported to the Circeo promontory, the nearest point of mainland Italian peninsula.
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In the northern promontory of the island between a massive stack and the island there is a spectacular sight of gigantic and majestic rocks formations taking the shape of a natural ‘cathedral’. This is an impressive monument of magma cooled by the sea and taking the shape of unusual vertical slits like columns of dark rocks. In fact, in Italian takes the name of ‘la cattedrale’ (the cathedral). It is called the cathedral due to the resemblance of these rocks to a Gothic cathedral with arches and pillars. In the local dialect, Ponza’s seamen called the Cathedral as ‘I Senghe Tramuntana’, meaning ‘the slits of the northerly winds’. Due to the pointed underwater rocks and the streams, it is not recommended to sail through it even with small boats. It is safer to double the stack and to stop nearby to admire Palmarola’s unique ‘Cathedral’ of rocks.
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Entering Palmarola on the left hand side there is the Faraglione di Mezzogiorno (mezzogiorno means South) a gigantic and spectacular stack and on the right is the Punta Vardella (a promontory). The gargantuan rock unveil a surprise: here you can admire the turquoise waters of the marine cave called Grottone di Mezzogiorno where only small boats can go across easily. In the evening it’s possible to admire Venus right in the middle of its dark entrance.
This is a marine cave similar to the Blue Grotto in Capri island. It is a stunning geological creation that no one should miss to visit. Here the water inside the cave absorbs all colors of the spectrum except for an emerald greenish blue which instead is reflected in a radioactive glow on the rocky walls of the cave. The rocks just below the water are also colored like aquamarine or emerald and resemble large, fantasy jewels; once inside the Grottone di Mezzogiorno it is as if one has stepped inside an iridescent gemstone of wonderland. It is really a mystical and ethereal experience.
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Painters, artists and writers spend their time on the island finding inspiration in the blue sea and sky, in its remote silence in the abandoned homes carved and cut into the rock of the hills facing the natural port of the island. The nature and beauty of these waters is itself a reward to the sight. In this area of south Tyrrhenian Sea, the presence of a sperm whales and common dolphin population has been constantly documented. The summer is the best season to enjoy the very special encounters from boats with whales, dolphins and other large cetaceans.
If you love solitude and living in the wild nature, Palmarola is one the most charming islands you can find in the Mediterranean, one of the very few which are still deserted. On Palmarola time stands still beating a different pace without working agendas or frantic tasks to accomplish governed only by the sound of wind, waves and marine birds. Who of us at some point in life has never dreamt to take refuge and spend time on a desert and remote island?
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