Trekking hiking routes:
Sunday
Itinerary: Marina di Campo – M.te Perone – S.Piero – Marina di Campo – M.te Orello – Lacona – M.te Tambone – Marina di Campo
Start and End point: Marina di Campo
Length: 57,7 km
Enviromental: Garigue, Mediterranean scrub , wood
Total altitude difference: mt 1645
Travel time: 4-6 hours
“Gran fondo Elba Ovest” route, Elba’s most relevant MTB race is defined also as a MTB cycle tour. The tour starting point is Marina di Campo seafront, then after about 1.5 Km it continues onto off-road tracks; we turn right straight after a ‘Stop’ guidepost, 15 meters further on we take a left by the end of the bridge to enter a narrow trail that runs next to “La Foce“ ditch in a lowland surrounded by reeds. The trail takes us back on a paved road, after about 10 meters and just before a bridge ( Km 2.9, as indicated by MTB signs) we turn right at the junction then cross the main road,(Km 3,9) and climb along a panoramic dirt track in the direction of Le Solane, a good soil road that cuts halfway up the hill; surrounded by Mediterranean scrub we get in the vicinity of Sant’ Ilario town (200 m above sea level) where we take a steep uphill trail (Club Alpino Italiano path no.5, Km 8,9) that leads us up to the 630 meters of Mount Perone; once reached its summit, we start to descend towards Marina di Campo through a tarmacked road all to way to CAI path no. 90 (Km14.7 long, 577mt above seal level – access on the right) which takes us to Castagnone natural spring. A trail steep and technical at first, after a few hundred meters, underneath a beautiful forest of holm oaks and pines, turns into a fast descent with many humps, bound to amuse all descent enthusiasts. Once reached Piane al canale, an ‘airy’ plateau at 500 meters, we turn right by a National Park sign (indicating San Piero) into a spectacular firebreak that descends towards the Gulf of Marina di Campo, while giving you an inestimable feeling of diving right into the sea. At the end of this fire line, we enter a wonderful single trek (follow sign indicating San Piero).
The narrow trail ends in the village of San Piero. After passing through it, a steep and technical path (MTB signalised) leads us back to Marina di Campo, we have covered 21.5 kilometers so far but the main ascending difficulties involved are behind us by now; we ride through the first same trail again up to Km 27, from there, we keep going straight along easy pathways leading us to the entrance of Literno valley, once crossed the paved road and walked on its right hand side, this, after about one kilometer, turns into a shaded dirt road that leads us towards Colle Reciso quarries (Km 34, mt 200 above sea level), after reaching the main road, we turn left in the direction of Portoferraio then immediately right (towards Hotel Picchiaie), continuing off-track to Mount Orello, accompanied on our right by a wonderful view over Portoferraio and its Medicean fortresses. At Km 37 of our tour, we take Mount Orello forest trail (follow for ‘horses stables’) characterized by a soft and reddish in colour soil. Like Calamita, Mount Orello is a real labyrinth of roads and trails too, once followed onto its main trail and crossed over its peak, we are now at 350 meters and ridden 39 Km of our tour. The descent towards Lacona is wide and fast, offering all bikers a wonderful view of both Gulfs of Lacona and Stella; at Km 42 we take the main road again towards Lacona for three kilometers then take a diversion on our left in the direction of Laconella (sign Laconella Km 46,3 – CAI path no. 47), which will take us up to the 345 meters of Mount Tambone, the last effort of our tour. The road climbing up to Mount Tambone alternates sharpers rises to apparently flat grounds, and by ignoring all forks, you cross over to Km 52.3 (302 meters above sea level).
Once reached the summit, we start our descend along a steep but fairly easy path that leads us to the Gulf of Fonza ,where a short climb and a final downhill stretch take us back to loc. Segagnana. Here we take the one kilometer long trail found on our right hand side(Km 56), that lead us onto Marina di Campo’s cycle lane.
Sunday
Route Sant’ Ilario – Marciana Mount Perone – Saint’ Ilario
Length: 26.3 Km
Total altitude difference: 711 mt
Interests: historical naturalistic panoramic
Travel time: 3 hours
Starting from the beautiful square of Sant’ Ilario spring (200 m.a.s.l.), we take an unsurfaced road on the right side of the sports ground, then keep onto the main road up to the Colle Reciso junction (Km 2.5 -180 m.a.s.l.) where we take the shaded unsurfaced road on our left, this runs next to the small church of Santa Rita, and leads us to the Buon Consiglio road intersection (Km 5.2 – 265 m.a.s.l.). We keep left and after a short asphalt stretch, we enter (Km 6,9 – 230 m.a.s.l) a nice cobbled path surrounded by beautiful ferns that also features a spectacular crossing over a small stone bridge, then ending at the entrance of the medieval village of Poggio (Km 8.3 – 330 m.a.s.l) Left the village, we stop at Napoleon spring (Km 8,9 – 300 m.a.s.l) to quench our thirst, then continue on a short stretch of paved road that leads us to Marciana (Km 11.3 – 350 m.a.s.l.). We climb to the upper side of the village, and once lined its amazing fortress dated 1200 AD and gone further up two tight bends, we enter a forest track (Km 23.2 – 418m.a.s.l. – Cai path no. 6) shaded by pines and chestnut trees, that crosses the valley of Pedalta (meaning ‘life course’). One kilometer in, a barrier stops motor vehicles from going any further; we continue up to a large firefighting water tank on our left, here the road becomes a path with a short but technical downhill stretch, we then cross a granite bridge and ignored a deviation on our left, we keep going until we reach Romitorio di San Cerbone (Km 16 – 531m.a.s.l), an hermitage built by Benedictines monks in 1421 AD.
Once departed, a quick descent underneath chestnut trees at first, then pines, takes us back to Poggio (Km 19.7 330 m.a.s.l.), where we take a paved road by turning right towards Mount Perone.
Reached the top of our rise (Km 23.2 – 630 m.a.s.l), we go left by a wooden house on our right, (Cai path no.5 – sign indicating Sant Ilario) take a nice downhill path pretty technical and with quite few humps, that leads us back to the picturesque village of Sant’ Ilario (Km 26.3 – 200 m.a.s.l) while overlooking almost the whole island and on clearer days, also the islands of Pianosa, Montecristo, and Giglio.
