Sunday, March 3, 2019

Lighthouse of the Week, March 3-9, 2019: Punta Ferraione, Capraia Island, Italy


As one might expect, Italy has a lot of lighthouses.  I just featured five of them on Sicily or adjacent to it.  While there are a lot of lighthouses on the mainland, I just happened to find one on another Italian island.

According to Wikipedia, which I'll get back to in a moment, there are seven islands in the Tuscan archipelago.  They are in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of the province of   The biggest one is Elba, famous as the place that couldn't hold Napoleon the first time he was exiled.  The second one (by size) is Giglio, the third is Capraia, which is where the lighthouse for this week is located.  The fourth is Montecristo, which is where a certain count of fictional literary was from. There's three more, as well as some marine rocks, but I don't need that much detail.

So back to Capraia.  About 400 people live there. There's one harbor, and the lighthouse is located on a small peninsula (Punta Ferraione) that partially defines the harbor.  Here's a map.  Zoom in or out to get a feel for the features.

For a change of pace, here's some information on this lighthouse from Wikipedia:
"The lighthouse, built in 1868 and refurbished in 1908, consists of a quadrangular tower, 12 metres (39 ft) high, attached to the northern corner of the 2-storey keeper's house; both are painted white. The lantern and the lantern roof have an octagonal shape and are painted grey metallic. Though the lighthouse is automated and there is no keeper in service, the building accommodate the local office of the Guardia Costiera.

The light is positioned at 30 metres (98 ft) above sea level and emits a long white flash in a 6 seconds period, visible up to a distance of 16 nautical miles (30 km; 18 mi)."
Below are three pictures of the lighthouse. Here's a link to a short commercial video -- I can't embed the video here.



















Final thought:  doesn't 'quadrangular' mean 'square'?


No comments: