The small harbour of Pianosa, abandoned and decadent like most of the architecture on Pianosa, immediately reveals straight away to visitors the surreal and mysterious soul of the island.
We go down to the beautiful beach of Cala Giovanna, point of departure and arrival of our excursion.
Sea Kayaks in the water and off we paddle northwards through the fantastic sea transparencies of Cala Giovanna, traveling up Pianosa eastern coast: on our right the ruins of Villa Romana di Agrippa Postumo and its enclosed fish farming ponds; behind it, is the “Dalla Chiesa wall”, an unsettling evidence of the local one-time high security prison.
We paddle over the shallow and rocky seabed, rich in marine life, flanking a low and clear coast, behind us a green scrubland covered mostly by Phoenician juniper and lentisk. Moving forward through the crystal clear water, we get close to small caves eroded by the sea, along Pianosa’s soft coast made up mainly of shell-sand conglomerate.
We push our kayaks between rocks and ravines up to rounding three small coves, the largest one named “Cala dell’Alga”, where dead leaves of Poseidonia lay deposited, we then reach “the flat white cliffs”, on them, during Gregale wind storms, dozens of trunks bleached by sun and wind have washed ashore, and rest now helpless as skeletons of sea monsters emerged from imaginary worlds .
It’s been about forty minutes since set off, and we are now at one of the most spectacular spots: Scoglio della Lancia, where the sea is particularly stunning, a seabed of thin white sand enhances the limpidity of the water, a light blue so incredibly intense and luminous to seem surreal.
The coastline is higher here: erosion has drawn some phantasmagorical shapes, inside which, spectacular caves full of stalactites and stalagmites can be found. Caves probably already inhabited during the Paleolithic and certainly in the Neolithic eras.
A few more paddles after rounding Cala Brisighelli, to get to another particularly impressive spot, Il Grottone, a large cave with a shallow and rocky seabed, where small shoals of sea breams and porgies and can be often seen.
Once left the cave we round Punta del Grottone, home to a large colony of Herring gulls, and start to travel up the northern side of Pianosa: rounded Punta Maestra dominated by a watchtower from the former prison, we get to admire on our left an extraordinary natural rock arch, surrounded by caves and landslides, typical of this stretch of coastline; we then enter the small Cala dello Zolfo followed by Punta del Marchese, whose imposing promontory is surrounded by flat rocks encrusted in salt: after getting through few shoals surrounding this spot, we enter the spectacular bay of Porto Romano.
Porto Romano, also known as Cala del Marchese is an amazing semicircular bay with a fine sand seabed hiding cargo shipwrecks from the Roman times, and is surrounded by elegant white rocks with phantasmagorical forms, It is for this reasons considered the most beautiful cove of Pianosa.
We continue paddling inshore up to round Secca dei Cormorani, then head back north, away from the coast to circumnavigate Scoglio della Scarpa, the northernmost point of Pianosa’s geo-morphological structure, after that, we are now coasting the island on the eastern end of Cala dello Zolfo, where we find a white and high coast characterized by “cobwebs”.
After cruising over Scoglio Forano bright seabed, we carry on with our excursion in the absolute silence of Pianosa sea, interrupted only by seagulls screeching sounds and the noisy take-offs of cormorants; after a four hours tour we head back to Cala Giovanna beach (the only area of Pianosa where bathing is allowed) for a wonderful swim.