Mythology has it that Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of beauty and love, was visiting one of her many lovers on the Italian mainland when she accidentally broke her string of pearls, and in doing so formed the Tuscan Archipelago, the chain of islands that straddles the Tyrrhenian and Ligurian seas between Tuscany and Corsica, of which Elba is by far the largest.

And it was here on Elba, on the island that the Greeks called Aethalia – and specifically at Le Ghiaie, which we will be visiting ourselves in due course – that Jason and the Argonauts are said to have landed after taking the Golden Fleece. They played discus with the pebbles they found on the beach.