Ponza discovery guide

Ponza is 7.5 square kilometres of volcanic rock shaped like the letter i, and the dot is a separate island 120 metres offshore. Twenty-five kilometres of jagged coast, kaolin and tuff, with extinct craters still legible in the hills.

The friction is the sand. Every beach here is gravel and stone — only Chiaia di Luna has any fine sand at all, and it lies under a sheer cliff. Beach tourism is the island's entire economy, so summer loads 3,107 residents with thousands of bathers and divers.

So come for the water rather than the shore, and book the crossing early — hydrofoils and ferries run from Anzio, San Felice Circeo, Formia, Terracina and Naples. Time it for June or the first half of September, and bring a mask and a boat rather than a beach towel.

June is the month to come: the sea is warm, the patronal feast of San Silverio falls on the 20th, and the summer traffic has not arrived.

July and August are the beach season, when thousands of bathers and divers reach 3,107 residents and the crossings are at their fullest.

September is the other good window — warm water, clear diving, and the island returned to itself.

May and October are quiet and pleasant, with a subtropical Mediterranean climate and a moderate range.

Winter is very quiet, and crossings to an exposed Tyrrhenian island become weather-dependent.

See the shape

Narrow and elongated like the letter i, from the Faraglione La Guardia in the south to Punta dell'Incenso in the north-east — with the island of Gavi as the dot, 120 metres offshore.

Go underwater

The jagged volcanic coast makes for an extremely varied underwater environment, with submarine caves and cliffs around Chiaia di Luna and the rest of the island.

Accept the gravel

Every beach here is gravel and stone. Chiaia di Luna is the only one with fine sand, under a sheer cliff.

Find Circe's cave

The Grotta della Maga Circe, on the west coast between Capo Bianco and Chiaia di Luna — where the tradition says she wintered before summering on Monte Circeo.

Look for the Roman water system

Aqueducts from Le Forna to Santa Maria, dams and the great Piscinae Limariae cisterns that once watered the entire Roman fleet.

Read the port as architecture

A curved backdrop of houses on two street levels, built under Winspeare and Carpi between 1768 and 1793 by convicts serving life.

Note where Mussolini was held

On an island his own regime had made a place of political confinement in 1928, from 27 July to 7 August 1943.

Ponza is an island that has been emptied and refilled, and the refilling is recent enough to be traceable.

Its people descend from 52 Ischian families — 130 individuals — settled here under the Bourbons after two centuries in which Saracen raids had left the island practically uninhabited. There is no long continuity here of the kind the mainland hill towns claim.

Its physical character is Bourbon by design. The port with its curved backdrop of houses on two street levels, the fortress, the church, the Palazzo degli Uffici, the cemetery — all of it drawn by Winspeare and Carpi and built between 1768 and 1793 by hundreds of convicts serving life sentences, who were then imprisoned on the island they had built.

Beneath that is an unprotected Roman layer. Aqueducts, cisterns that supplied the Roman fleet, a submerged villa and theatre at Punta Madonna, tunnels still used by cars — and no protection of the ruins has ever been established, even in recent times. Villas were quarried for building stone; a temple of Mithras was for years visible in a souvenir shop.

Its honesty about the twentieth century is worth noting. The bentonite mine at Le Forna gave about 150 men work from 1935 to 1975, and cost one of the island's finest coves and a number of cases of silicosis.

And its present identity is the sea. Beach tourism is the driving sector, agriculture has retreated, and the island is visited every year by divers for the coast rather than the shore.

The marine environment is the attraction and the pressure. Thousands of bathers and diving enthusiasts reach an island of 3,107 residents every summer, drawn by submarine caves and cliffs. Dive with an operator who respects the caves, anchor nowhere sensitive, and take nothing out of the water.

Come in June or September. The island's economy is driven by beach tourism concentrated into a few weeks, and shifting your visit by a fortnight relieves the weeks that strain it most.

The Roman ruins are unprotected — treat them better than the law does. No protection of the Roman remains has ever been established on the island, even in recent times. Villas were quarried for building material and a temple of Mithras stood in a souvenir shop. What survives does so by chance.

The terraces are heritage, not scenery. The hillsides are covered with man-made terraces, most of them no longer maintained and falling apart. Walk them carefully; they are the island's agricultural history collapsing in slow motion.

Water is finite on 7.5 square kilometres. The Romans built aqueducts, dams and great cisterns here because the island could not supply itself easily, and nothing about that has changed.

Remember what the mine cost. Bentonite extraction at Le Forna from 1935 to 1975 destroyed one of the island's finest coves and left cases of silicosis among the workers. It is part of the island's story, not a footnote to it.

What each level of spending buys on Ponza

Two EU rules govern what you are actually charged. You must be clearly informed of the total price, including all taxes and additional charges. And traders in the EU are not allowed to charge extra for paying by credit or debit card — the exceptions are American Express and Diners Club cards and corporate cards, where any fee may not exceed what processing actually costs the trader.

The tiers above describe what each level of spending buys here, not quoted rates. No published rate card covers a comune this size, and prices move sharply with the season.