Placed in a beautiful - but out of the way - part of the Central Coast, much like Napoleon was also set aside on Elba for his misdemeanors.
Napoleon was initially exiled to Elba in 1814 but escaped in 1815. He surrendered to the British after Waterloo in 1815 and was exiled to the much more distant island of Saint Helena where he died (some say poisoned) in 1821.
Some reports state that the famous palindrome "Able was I ere I saw Elba" was spoken to Dr. O’Meara by Napoleon who acted as his personal physician on St Helena.
Purely as a sideline now as the previous stump has gone, this cache location boasts another saint with the nearby wharf named after the ill-fated but "well spoken" Eulalia.
Saint Eulalia (Aulaire, Aulazia, Ollala, Eulària) (c. 290–12 February 303), co-patron saint of Barcelona, was a 13-year-old Roman Christian virgin who suffered martyrdom in Barcelona during the persecution of Christians in the reign of emperor Diocletian.
For refusing to recant her Christianity, the Romans subjected her to thirteen tortures; including:
- Putting her into a barrel with knives (or glass) stuck into it and rolling it down a street (according to tradition, the one now called Baixada de Santa Eulalia "Saint Eulalia's descent").
- Cutting off her breasts
- Crucifixion on an X-shaped cross. Thus she is depicted with this cross, the instrument of her martyrdom
- Finally, decapitation after which, apparently, a dove flew from her neck.
Please enjoy the birdlife here while contemplating Gosford Council's wharf naming policy.
Eulalia would not renounce Someone to the Romans. ("...and what have they ever done for us?!") So as a pertinent clue, if you multiply that entity's reported age at death, you'll get a digit that can't be denied in German.
Enjoy!