Under Italy The jewel-encrusted knee-high boot of Italy lends itself to 7,600 km of coastline, four seas and numerous islands dotted right around the coast offering fantastic locations for scuba diving and snorkelling. Envy Italy dives into the best spots for your first diving trip to Italy
Elba Island With a large variety of marine life, set dive trails and a shallow shipwreck (12 metres) with great visibility, Elba offers fantastic dive sites that are great for photography and beginners. On the north coast of the island the protruding rocks above the water mark the location of Formiche della Zanca. Dive down and you descend to an amazing seabed with a maze of set trails for divers to follow. Expect to see sun fish, octopus, amberjack, sponges, red corals, sea fans and seahorse. Sardinia With its famous crystal-clear aquamarine waters and underwater cave for-
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mations Sardinia is a favourite with all levels of diver, particularly on the east side of the island. Beginners and snorkellers can enjoy many shore dives while more advanced divers can enjoy the caves, the most popular being the Grotta del Nereo. There are three entrances to the caves with one 100 metres down, where you can then swim up the chimney to one of the shallower entrances. The marine protected areas of the Maddalena and Marine Park of Lavezzi offer plenty of marine life to swim among. Expect to see lobsters, red coral, nudibranchs and Pinna nobilis fan mussels. The Grouper Reef is home to a colony of territorial groupers weighing 60–90 lb (30–40 kg). Wrecks include the KT, a long German ship that sank in 1943 in the marine protected areas of the Maddalena and Marine Park of Lavezzi.
