Introduction to Ustica

57km (35 miles) NW of Palermo

Rising from the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea and linked to the capital by hydrofoil and ferry, this holiday resort goes by the touristic name of the "Black Pearl of the Mediterranean." In this case, the name fits, as the volcanic island is composed of dark, petrified, rather foreboding-looking lava. The Romans, in fact, named it ustum ("burnt"), because it looked to them like a large black rock.

Both this turtle-shaped island and its main port are called Ustica. A visit here is a trip to unknown, offbeat Sicily. Even many Palermitans, who live a short ferry ride away, have never visited Ustica.

The village of Ustica is set on a tufa ledge between two inlets, lying in the shadow of Capo Falconara, whose summit is crowned with the remains of a fortress erected by the Bourbons.

The history of the island is ancient; it was once inhabited by the Phoenicians. In time they were followed by the Greeks, who named the island Osteodes ("ossuary"), in memory of the skeletons of 6,000 Carthaginians, mutineers who were brought here and abandoned without food or water.

Saracen pirates raided the island over the years, carrying off the prettiest women. Attempts to colonize it in the Middle Ages failed because of raids by Barbary pirates. The Bourbons repopulated it in 1762 with people from the Aeolian Islands and Naples. They constructed a trio of towers to defend the island against pirates.

As late as the 1950s, Ustica was a penal colony, a sort of Alcatraz of Sicily. Antonio Gramsci, the theorist of the Italian Communist Party, was once imprisoned here. And, in one of the most secret meetings of World War II, British and Italian officers met here in September 1943 to discuss a switch in sides from Mussolini to the Allies.

Ustica is tiny, only 8.6 sq. km (3 1/3 sq. miles). The top of a submerged volcano, it is the oldest island in the Sicilian outer archipelago -- even older than the Aeolian Islands, one of which is Lipari, which it resembles. Because its jagged coastline is riddled with creeks, bays, and caves, Ustica is best explored by a rented boat circling the island.

In 1987, Sicily designated part of the island a national marine park, and today its clear waters and beautiful sea, filled with aquatic flora and fauna, attract snorkelers and scuba divers from around the world. Divers are also drawn to its ancient wrecks and the now-submerged city of Osteodes, 1.6km (1 mile) west of the island, which sank into the sea in unrecorded times.

Ustica has a population of some 1,370 islanders. Visit them in such idyllic months as June or September; a trip here in July or August is so hot, it's like a journey to Hades.