Ustica Travel Guide

The black-lava top of a submerged volcano, Ustica is the oldest of the Sicilian outer islands. It is tiny (9 sq. km/3 1/2 sq. miles, pop. 1,370) and rather foreboding looking, thanks to its dark volcanic composition. The Romans, in fact, named it ustum ("burnt"), perhaps because it looked to them like a large piece of spent charcoal. But where there's volcanic soil, there's fertility, and parts of Ustica are actually quite lush and green. A visit here is a trip to unknown, offbeat Sicily. Even many Palermitans have never made the 75km (47 miles) ferry ride north to Ustica.

The Phoenicians were the first recorded civilization to settle Ustica, and in time they were followed by the Greeks, who named the island Osteodes ("ossuary"), in memory of the skeletons of 6,000 Carthaginian mutineers who were brought here and abandoned without food or water. Attempts to colonize Ustica in the Middle Ages failed because of raids by Barbary 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.

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, an underwater archaeological park 1.6km (1 mile) west of the island.