On Napoleon Island amid forests, volcanoes, bicentennial turtles and the world's second most expensive coffee: £32 a cup
St. Helena Island is worth going to, here is our experience

For everyone who has studied some history, St. Helena is the island of Napoleon. The lost 'rock' in the Atlantic where the British sent it after defeating it in 1814 at the Battle of Waterloo. But for just under four thousand souls it is home.
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Almost three thousand kilometers from the coast of Namibia and almost four thousand from those of Brazil, St. Helena Is one of the most remote places on the planet. The two nearest islands, Ascension (where there is an Raf and U.S. Air Force base) and Tristan de Cunha, are two hours' flight away, the former to the northwest, the latter to the south.
The only airline that flies there is South African Airlink, which connects it once or twice a week (depending on the season) to Johannesburg and Cape Town with Embraer 190-LRs. But this has been true since 2017. Since, that is, the airport was opened on Napoleon Island.
First, in fact, on the continent you could only go once a week by boat, with a five-day trip to Cape Town, or by a two-week crossing if one wanted to reach the UK (St. Helena is a UK Overseas Territory). Now 'all it takes' is a four and a half hour flight from Johannesburg or four from Cape Town.
English is spoken on the island and the currency is the St. Helena pound, but the British pound is also accepted. There are only two bank branches, no ATMs and there are very few stores that accept credit cards. The telephone arrived on the island in 1898, but it was not until after World War II of the twentieth century that it became available to everyone. Television appeared in 1994, internet in 2013, and fiber (thanks to an undersea cable) in 2017.
The Flight Club explored the island for four days, discovering one of the most exotic places in the world, despite in the capital city of Jamestown, which has barely 250 souls, you feel like you're in a small town in Wales, including pubs.
Here, in a space of 20 kilometers by 12 (so long and wide is the island), there is everything or almost everything nature has to offer. There are arid expanses with cacti and succulents where it feels like being in Mexico's Baja California, sub-tropical forests That it feels like the Seychelles.
E, still, volcanic valleys arid but dotted with palm trees reminiscent of certain places on Lanzarote or Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands, and windswept green valleys dotted with low bushes and sheep reminiscent of those in the Highlands in Scotland. In short, the world (more or less) in a handkerchief.
Everything from bananas, papaya and mangoes to vines grow there. (they make wine down here), from European fruits and vegetables (apples, pears, strawberries, salad, cauliflower) coffee, which is among other things the second most expensive in the world, after a variety grown in Japan.
To get it abroad from the three local producers, caffeine connoisseurs and chefs pay more than 120 euros per kilo (plus shipping costs, of course). And, away from the island, you can only taste it in a coffee shop in Mayfair, London's super-exclusive neighborhood for rich people, Where a cup served at the table costs 32 (!!!!) pounds, more than 40 euros. Stuff for connoisseurs (and millionaires).
We tasted it for free (after 'discovering' the entire process from the bean on the plant to the coffee machine) at the Wranghams estate, where we had our a 'double espresso' that was the bomb: very intense, but with an aroma that changed almost with every sip, at times a bit 'fruity' compared to our 'normal' espresso (but much depends on the roasting, which is less intense on the island than in Europe).
In the garden of the governor's house (which is, in part, open to the public) we saw the oldest living animal creature in the world: his name is Jonathan, and he is a male turtle. When Jonathan arrived from the Seychelles in 1882 he was supposedly 50 years old. Do the math yourself and you will find that The beast is almost 200 years old. 192 to be exact. For his age he moves around a lot, he still mates with the only female he has next door (much younger than him, of course), but the two have not had any children. He is half-blind, though, because of a cataract.
In our four days on the island we could not, of course, not visit Longwood House, which was Napoleon Bonaparte's residence from 1815 to 1821 and the place where he died (to be buried on the island for 19 years before the British allowed the French to take his body to France, where it is now at Les Invalides in Paris).
The creator of the house-museum is French honorary consul Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, who has been working there since 1985. Almost all of the residence can be visited, including The room where Napoleon died on May 5. and the one where the body was displayed so that greetings could be brought to her before the funeral.
The furnishings (including the tank in which the emperor made long beams every day, but not the emperor's deathbed) are almost all original. Michel found them around among the island's families by studying the records of the 1822 auction in which Napoleon's property was sold by the island's British government. This work took 40 years and is still not finished.
If then, as well as nature and history, you are passionate about sports, St. Helena is your paradise. You can see the whale shark and dolphins by making diving or even just snorkeling, hiking on the dozens of miles of trails, including extreme ones, that run across the island. Ride your bike, perhaps with pedal assist, along the 115 miles of paved roads, or offroad.
And, again, putting legs and lungs to the test along the Jacobs Stairway, a staircase with a gradient of even 60% that climbs 200 meters in height with 699 steps. The world record for ascent is 4 minutes and 50 seconds. 'Normal' people do it in about 17-18 minutes. Originally the staircase was not a tourist attraction, but a ramp along which cables ran with platforms to transport goods up is already from the capital. A kind of funicular railway that operated by pulling donkeys.
Despite 'the advent' of air transportation, the island still has no developed accommodation infrastructure. And this is a plus for those who love adventure and places that are still 'virgin' in an era when mass tourism is coming almost everywhere, but also a limitation.
There are half a dozen restaurants and pubs in the capital and only one 4-star hotel, the finest hotel on the island, the Mantis: built in a 1774 structure (but with a more modern wing added in 2014), has a fine restaurant serving excellent South African food and wines, a bar open late, and comfortable, tastefully decorated rooms.
Forget, however, resorts, spas and other such things. There are beautiful accommodations (some on Airbnb) in the hills of the island, though, carved out of 19th-century houses or built from scratch, with fantastic views of valleys and the sea.
To sunbathers a warning: there are no beaches here. (except one called Sandy Beach of black sand), the water is year-round about 24 degrees but the weather is bizarre and only in January and February is it really 'summer' as we understand it in Italy. Swimming is still not recommended, however, unless you go diving or snorkeling with some guide, but there is a public pool right on the waterfront.
In short, the suggestion is this: if your destination is South Africa and you have 3-4 extra days after visiting the 'usual' Kruger Park, Garden Route, Cape and Stellenbosch wine valleys, hop on one of the flights to the island.
Already from landing (the runway ends on both sides on sheer cliffs two hundred meters high, and locals still go to the airport to watch the 'outsiders' disembark) and then circling the island you will discover world of your own, a unique place inhabited by kind people who greet you on the street even if they have never seen you before and they go out of their way in case you get lost (as happened to us) while walking the island's trails.
Ah, prices (gasoline aside, but there are no rental cars). are those of South Africa, although here we are in Britain. Dine on fish and chips while downing a beer at the yacht club for less than ten euros e dine on less than twenty (South African wine included). Or buy for about twenty pounds a bottle of local gin or rum, made in the 'world's most remote distillery', as it says on the label. A bottle that you can surely display as unique, or almost unique, when you return....