The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
All things small and beautiful
Italy’s pint-size islands offer a king-size chance to enjoy history, unspoilt sands and volcanic wonders
ISLAND-HOPPING IN LA MADDALENA
Between Sardinia and Corsica, these rugged but welcoming islands are a paradise for beachcombers, sun-worshippers and anyone who loves messing about in boats.
WHY IT’S SPECIAL
This scattering of seven islands and 55 glorified rocks off the northern coast of Sardinia is the closest the Mediterranean comes to the deserted beaches and translucent seas that you find in certain blessed parts of the Caribbean. With the closure, in 2008, of the huge Nato naval base on the main island of La Maddalena, the archipelago has rediscovered smallscale tourism and returned to the kind of laid-back rhythm that suits it.
The default holiday blueprint is to stay in one of La Maddalena’s small hotels or B&Bs, get a grocer to put together a picnic, and take a boat each morning to an outlying island – such as Spargi, where pristine beaches like Cala Soraya have fewer footprints than Robinson Crusoe’s island. Joined to La Maddalena by a road bridge, Caprera, the second biggest island, was the retirement home of 19th-century Italian freedom fighter Giuseppe
Garibaldi. It’s a magnificently rugged place of grey-pink granite rocks and shady pine forests.
YOU’LL NEVER FORGET
The famous Spiaggia Rosa or pink beach, on the island of Budelli, which boasts pale rose sand made up of millions of tiny fragments of coral-like microorganisms. It is cordoned off these days to protect it from the depredations of sand thieves, but the rest of the island is well worth exploring.
INSIDER TIP
Shop around for boat tours to Spargi and Budelli on La Maddalena’s colourful quay. Hire a RIB, or charter the elegant 60ft wooden schooner La Reole (lareolecharter.com), skippered by capable Luca Loddo, to explore some of the archipelago’s more remote islands and beaches.
HOW TO DO IT
Fly to Olbia-Costa Smeralda (served by ba.com, easyjet.com and jet2.com).
The jumping-off point for the islands is the port town of Palau, a 45-minute drive from Olbia airport. Car/ passenger ferries (20 mins) leave Palau regularly for La Maddalena.