Few places tell so much history in so little space. The La Maddalena Archipelago, a crossroads of the Strait of Bonifacio between Sardinia and Corsica, was for centuries a contested and fortified strategic point.
Permanently inhabited only from the 18th century, the island soon became a stronghold of the Savoy Navy. In 1793 it repelled the French attack in which a young Napoleon took part, thanks to the heroism of Domenico Millelire. A few years later, between 1803 and 1805, Admiral Nelson based his fleet here before Trafalgar.
From 1855 Caprera welcomed Giuseppe Garibaldi, who lived and died here: today his house is a place of pilgrimage. Meanwhile stonecutters quarried the pink granite that built forts, piers and towns. The 20th century brought the great naval base and the wounds of war: the sinking of the battleship Roma, Mussolini’s imprisonment at Villa Weber, the Nazi occupation.
Forts, batteries and memories still dot the islands today: an open-air museum to be discovered step by step.