Golf Club Hermitage Elba reviewed: 9 holes on Napoleon’s island — the wildcard every tour needs

Napoleon was exiled to Elba in 1814. He spent ten months on the island before escaping to France, an episode that produced the apocryphal palindrome and, less famously, a lasting association between the island and the kind of place you end up when the world has temporarily stopped making room for you.

Golf Club Hermitage sits in the hills above the bay of Biodola, on the northern coast of Elba, 15 minutes from the Portoferraio ferry terminal. Nine holes, par-34, 2,400 metres. The course was built in 1972 as part of the Hotel Hermitage estate — a four-star hotel on a private bay that has been one of the most celebrated small resort hotels in Tuscany since it opened. The golf course was not designed to be Italy’s finest nine holes. It was designed to be the finest golf experience available on an island in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, 10 kilometres off the Tuscan coast.

It succeeds on these terms completely.

The course: what you are actually playing

Nine holes, par-34 — so not an eighteen-hole round by any technical definition. What it is: a 2,400-metre layout through granite outcroppings, Mediterranean maquis, and the specific terrain of a Tyrrhenian island hillside, with views across the Biodola bay on one side and the Elba interior on the other. The course plays through vegetation that has had fifty years to mature and has done so in the specifically wild way that island vegetation matures when it is not managed into tidiness.

The design is straightforward — this is not a course trying to impress with architectural sophistication. The holes use the terrain honestly: the hillside elevation changes produce natural strategic questions, the maquis provides rough that is genuinely rough, and the views at each tee position are the kind that make golfers stop mid-pre-shot routine to look.

Playing the nine twice (common practice for guests at the Hermitage hotel) produces eighteen holes of a significantly varied experience — the direction of play changes the wind exposure on each hole, the afternoon light produces different shadows and different strategic readings. Nine holes played forward is not the same as nine holes played backward.

For junior players: accessible from any reasonable ability level. The nine-hole format is itself appropriate for younger players or players earlier in their development. The island context — the sense of playing somewhere specific and unusual rather than somewhere designed to impress — is developmental in its own way.

The hole worth knowing

5th hole par-4: mid-length, played across a section of the hillside where the Biodola bay is directly visible below the right side of the fairway. The approach shot to a green platform above the bay is the course’s visual and strategic centrepiece. On a clear June or September afternoon, the combination of the Tyrrhenian light, the bay, the Elba coastline, and the particular silence of an island golf course in the late afternoon is not reproducible anywhere else in Italian golf.

The resort: what families actually need

The Hotel Hermitage is the practical base and the reason to visit. A 130-room hotel on a private beach at the Biodola bay, it has been operating since the 1960s with the consistency of a family-owned property that takes both its hospitality and its setting seriously. The private beach is consistently rated among the finest on Elba. The restaurant serves Tuscan and seafood cuisine at a quality that matches the setting. The spa is small and well-run.

For families: the Hotel Hermitage provides the specific combination that makes the Elba visit work — the private beach for the days when nine holes of golf is enough, the nine-hole format that accommodates junior players and beginners without the four-hour commitment of a full resort course, and the island atmosphere that distinguishes the trip from any mainland destination.

Elba itself has significant non-golf cultural interest: the Napoleonic museums (Villa dei Mulini in Portoferraio, Villa di San Martino in the hills), the island’s wine production (the Aleatico di Portoferraio is the historic wine of Elba), and the mining history that made the island important to Mediterranean civilisations long before Napoleon’s residence.

Best time to go

May to June and September to October. July and August on Elba are the Italian summer — the island’s year-round population of 32,000 accommodates approximately 3 million visitors annually, the majority in these two months. The pre- and post-summer windows provide the island in its best condition: the maquis in spring flower, the sea at its clearest, and the courses uncrowded.

Getting there: the logistics reality

Elba is accessible by ferry from Piombino on the Tuscan coast — the crossing takes 30 minutes. Piombino is 2 hours from Pisa Airport (PSA) or 2.5 hours from Florence (FLR) by car. The ferry runs frequently in season. With equipment: the ferry handles golf bags without drama; the hotel’s luggage transfer service meets guests at the Portoferraio terminal.

The logistics of an island require acceptance of the ferry timetable. This is a minor planning consideration for a destination that has been receiving visitors for centuries and has the island infrastructure to support them.

What to wear: the Inesea style edit

Elba in June or September is warm, slightly humid, and specifically beautiful in the Mediterranean island manner. The palette: the Tyrrhenian turquoise, the Elba granite grey-red, the maquis green-silver. Warm stone responds to the granite. Deep sage responds to the maquis. The private beach hotel context in the evening calls for something slightly more relaxed than a private club dinner — resort-casual rather than smart-golf.

Three pieces worth packing

The honest family verdict

Who should book it

Families wanting something genuinely different — an island nine-hole that provides a complete family experience in a setting that no mainland resort can replicate. Those building a Tuscan itinerary who want the Elba wildcard. Anyone who wants to play golf on Napoleon’s island and feels this is sufficient reason to go.

Official site:

https://www.golfhermitage.it/english

Who might look elsewhere

Those who require a full eighteen-hole championship course. For this, Punta Ala (90 minutes from Piombino) is the mainland alternative. Hermitage Elba is specifically for the golfer who values the experience over the course statistics.