La Maddalena

La Maddalena Archipelago National Park was created in 1994 at the north-eastern tip of Sardinia, in the Strait of Bonifacio, the channel that separates the island from Corsica. It was Italy's first national geomarine park and comprises sixty granite islands and islets, among them La Maddalena, Caprera, Santo Stefano, Spargi, Budelli, Razzoli and Santa Maria, as well as a broad expanse of sea.

Granite is the material that gives the whole its character. Wind and sea erosion have sculpted it into rounded forms, tafoni and balanced blocks, and its breakdown produces pale sands that, mixed with fragments of shells and corals, have formed beaches of great value such as the Spiaggia Rosa on Budelli, whose pink tone comes from the remains of a foraminifer and which has been closed to the public for decades to protect it.

The archipelago's waters form part of an area of very high value: the Strait of Bonifacio lies within the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean marine mammals and is managed in coordination with the French reserve on the Corsican side. They hold Posidonia meadows, bottlenose dolphins, loggerhead turtle and a seabird fauna that includes Scopoli's shearwater and Eleonora's falcon. The island of Caprera also carries a particular historical weight: Giuseppe Garibaldi lived and is buried there, and his house is today a national museum.