Rabbit beach

On the south coast of Lampedusa, Italy's southernmost island, a crescent of white sand curves around a bay of water so clear and shallow that boats seem to float above the seabed. Just offshore lies the Isola dei Conigli, Rabbit Island, a low rocky islet only 26 metres high and about 4.4 hectares in area. The water in the bay is between about 30 cm and 1.5 metres deep, and at times a narrow sandbar about 30 metres long has joined the islet to the main island.

The beach and islet are among the last places in Italy where the loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta, still comes ashore to lay its eggs. They belong to the Isola di Lampedusa nature reserve, managed by the environmental association Legambiente since 1995, and the waters around the islet lie in the strictest zone of the Pelagie Islands marine protected area. The plants and animals here resemble those of the North African coast, and the islet hosts a rare lizard, the large psammodromus. In April and September it serves as a resting place for migrating birds. The singer Domenico Modugno, who owned a villa above the bay, is said to have called it God's swimming pool.

Lampedusa is the largest of the Pelagie Islands, a small archipelago that belongs to Sicily but lies closer to Africa: Tunisia is about 113 km away and Sicily about 205 km. Geologically the island is part of the African continental shelf, a tilted block of limestone that rises highest on its northwestern cliffs and slopes down to the southeast. The island covers about 20 square kilometres.

Getting there

The nearest airport is Lampedusa Airport (LMP), about 6 km away on the same island. The closest city in a straight line, Chebba, is on the Tunisian coast across the sea; the practical connection is with Sicily, where ferries sail to Lampedusa from Porto Empedocle, about 215 km away, in a crossing of roughly nine hours.