Geology!

Yesterday we headed to the south eastern corner of the island to tour an old iron mining site. Michael agrees with me that it was pretty cool, although I was definitely nerding out a bit more over the geology of the area. The area is pretty remote from anything (and "anything" on this island is still pretty small), and so the drive out there was gorgeous and a little bit adventurous.
   Although the mine is currently non-operational, a substantial amount of the iron ore deposit - a bunch of magnetite, which is the highest iron content ore - still remains, so the mine is held as a strategic national reserve. The tour was neat - they bused us down to the mine entrance, right by the sea, and just sort of let us loose for a bit before the tour guide showed up. We didn't really know what was going on at that point, so we just wandered around the beach and I got really excited about the all the mineral samples just lying around. Eventually the italian-speaking guide showed up, and off we went - fortunately with audioguides to give us a little bit of context. I really wish I spoke italian for the tour, because as is always the case, it was clear that there was a lot more information and anecdotes from the guide as compared to the tapes. The tour took us underground through some of the original shafts and to the two major ore excavation sites, 24 m below ground. I spent most of my time shining my flashlight on the walls and inspecting the mineral deposits, so I mostly have pictures of rocks today.

This is a two way road, apparently.

The views were spectacular. And kind of reminded me of Hwy 1.

No more pavement, still technically two "lanes".

First view of the old mine shafts.

Slightly abandoned looking.

I was very excited about all the rocks here. The area is particularly complex geologically, so there were a lot of different rock types all jumbled together after many series of tectonic events, magmatism, and metamorphism. Somehow I didn't take a picture to illustrate that this is a beach and the sea is just off to the right.

Here, have all the pictures of rocks. This is lepidolite (purple) rich schist (a metamorphic rock) with carbonate (white). It was more purple in person.

Pegmatitic quartz veins cutting through the schist.

 Crystalline serpentine. Parts of the bedrock here is ancient ocean floor shoved up onto land, so there are all sorts of cool minerals.

Then we went underground, into the mine.

I didn't realize how blurry this picture was, but it actually captures the spirit of the steps quite well, although it underplays how wet everything was.

Iron oxides and salts

Little magnetite crystals.

I thought the staining was pretty.

No scale here... but this is the wall of a massive cavern that was excavated to get at one of the primary ore bodies. It was huge and dark and pretty awe inspiring.

Turns out my phone takes pretty good night pictures. It was way darker than this looks.

The other massive ore body cavern, with actual sunlight, because a calculation error caused them to accidentally collapse the roof, 24 m above. Apparently it was one of the only major mishaps in the modern mine.

More of the large hole in the earth.

Back at the surface - limonite, another valuable iron ore. But with all the magnetite around it's not sought after.

Appreciating flowers on the drive back home.

More views.

I spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach by the conference resort... there's a sailing ship in the harbor?

Pictures!

Elba has continued to treat us well. We've been going exploring in the mornings and then conferencing/teleconning it up in the afternoons. Yesterday we drove into the main city on the island, Portoferriao, and walked around a bit and explored the old fort complex that guards the main port. It was built in many iterations by various italian princes and spanish kings and napoleon, I guess. Everything was in Italian so the details are fuzzy. But it was kind of neat because once they let you in the gate you have free range to explore, and the views were very lovely.

Fort Medici.

Geology! This was a particularly striking natural wall.

That sky color.

Michael and the big blue sea.

The walls were very spacious...

The insides not so much.

Yeah, kind of cramped quarters indoors.

Looking out on one of the island's many, many perfect beaches.

This morning we went for a hike. There is a trail that runs around the whole of the island, which can be completed in 4 or 5 days, but a segment of it picks up at the end of the road from our airbnb, so we just hiked out for about an hour and then turned around. The weather today is very cool and overcast, which was actually perfect for hiking. 

The first bit of the trail was very stee.

The whole island is very wooded.

At the crest of the ridge!

Even cloudy, the views were lovely.

May is clearly an excellent time to visit here. There aren't many tourists yet so we don't have to fight crowds, and the whole hillside was bursting with flowers.

I take a lot of flower pictures..

Lavender was blooming all over the place and smelled amazing.

We have some pretty nice adventures together.

Island Adventures

And we're on Elba Island! Napoleon definitely got a pretty good shake when he was exiled here...

     Getting here went smoothly, but it's definitely something of a trip. The bus ride from Rome is about 3 hours, then a ferry ride, and then we had to get to our Airbnb. Michael booked that a while ago, and it has lovely reviews, all praising it's "seclusion" and "remoteness". The island is beautiful, with narrow winding roads curling up around stunning hills looking down over secluded bays and wave-kissed beaches. But that also means basically no buses and very strenuous (and risky!) walking. So we rented the seemingly only semi-automatic car on the island (neither of us trust our minimal experience driving manuals on these roads... we forgot to consider that gap in our educations) and set off, only for it to immediately start pouring rain. That combined with the fact that lanes aren't really a thing here and that our place is not really on a map (it's at the end of a very long dirt road) made arrival a bit adventurous. But the rain stopped almost as soon as we arrived, and the view is going to make it very hard to complain about anything further.

This is the view from our Airbnb. Not bad at all.

Well, except for the fact that the airbnb doesn't have wifi, but given that our days will be spent conferencing (cough, beaching) that can be forgiven.

The conference is held at a resort in Biodola, a tiny enclave that is basically all beach or beachfront property. And the resort is swanky - the grounds give way right into the bay, and the gardens are spilling with flowers and the pools are the fancy infinity type. The conference-covered lunch included all you can eat giant  prawns, whole fish grilled to perfection in its skin, and a huge array of amazing italian desserts. So it's made an impression so far. While Michael attended the sessions today (and gave his talk! He's now scot-free, almost), I got some work done while lounging poolside/oceanside (the rover isn't taking a vacation this week, unfortunately).  Our plan for the rest of the week is to split time with the conference and exploring, with time slightly weighted towards the latter.

The view from the ferry, coming into Portoferraio.

The view from my workdesk today.

I am a little overdressed for the day... our airbnb is quite cold (the apartment is tucked under the shade of the mountain), and somehow despite all indications, I didn't anticipate the weather at the resort. And to be fair, it's pretty windy, so although the sun is nice I've been appreciating the scarf. But tomorrow I'm ditching my boots. And bringing more sunscreen.

Not gonna get over the views anytime soon, I think.

I think we've come at an excellent time of year. It's not quite "spend all day in the water" weather, but there are spring flowers everywhere and we've beaten the tourist hordes that descend on this island every summer.

The one house up on the mountain? Yeah, that's our airbnb, as seen from the conference grounds.

The water isn't what you would call warm yet, but I think it's going to tempt me anyway.

Talk accomplished! And feeling fancy.

I thought that I asked for a water, and said yes when the waiter asked if I'd like some fruit in it. Something was lost in translation, but it was delicious.