Capoliveri

The name comes from Caput Liberum, the Roman head of the free territory. The medieval town that grew up on that ground sits on a terrace and is built into the slope as a maze of narrow alleys called chiassi, opening onto small piazzas rather than any wider square. Below it the southern lobe of Elba unfolds into thirty-five kilometers of coastline, more than any other comune on the island, and the beaches, Innamorata, Morcone, Pareti and Zuccale, are reached by a network of dirt roads off the ridge rather than by a single road along the shore.

The fishermen still go out at four in the morning from the cove at Naregno. What holds the town together is that relation between height and shore: a hill settlement governing a coastline it does not directly touch, with the old mining ground on the mountain behind it folded into the same protected park as the water below.