Monte Argentario

Monte Argentario was an island until the early 18th century when the shallow waters separating it from the mainland began to silt up creating two sandy spits of land, known as tomboli, that enclose the Ortebello lagoon. The town of Ortebello was linked to the island in 1842 when a dyke was constructed linking the mainland to Terrarossa. Jim and I decided that it might be nice to take a trip around the once island. Then we remembered that, the last time we came to Montieri, we had tried to do the same thing. On that occasion, for some reason Jim was not enamoured with Porto Santo Stefano and refused to allow me to read my book by the sea. Today he was less annoyed by it but I hadn’t taken my book!

As on the last occasion, we attempted to circle the island in an anti-clockwise fashion keeping the sea on our right. Leaving Porto Santo Stefano Nuvi was attempting to bring us clockwise, back the way we came. Jim was having none of it and followed his nose anti-clockwise. This caused a steady climb up into mountains with, at times, lovely views out over the sea and the island of Giglio. Nuvi frantically tried to get us to make a u turn but Jim ignored her until the road ,which had been zigzagging wildly upwards, turned into a track and Nuvi’s good sense finally won through. We had had no more success than the last time! We made our u turn and returned to Porto Santo Stefano and went in a clockwise direction until we reached Porto Ercole, our anti-clockwise goal.

A view over Porto Ercole.

Over lunch we decided that seeing all of Monte Argentario was not going to be possible. It’s possible that there was a reason for it to be called “Monte”!

Coming into Orbetello.

On the return journey we stopped off at Follonica to stock up in Pam supermarket. And guess what - it’s not raining yet!