The La Maddalena archipelago lies off the northern coast of Sardinia, and boats from Palau and Cannigione spend whole days among its coves, several of them passing the Pink Beach of Budelli. The islands also keep a quieter story. On Caprera, Giuseppe Garibaldi spent the last 25 years of his life, and his house and farm are now the Compendio Garibaldino. This page explains why the Pink Beach can only be admired from a distance, what there is to see on Caprera, which church in La Maddalena keeps a gift from Nelson, and how to explore the islands.
Spiaggia Rosa, as the Pink Beach is called in Italian, lies on Budelli, and the usual way to see it is from the water, aboard one of the boat services that tour the archipelago. The beach has full protection. Boats may not sail, anchor or stop in the stretch of water facing it, swimming there is forbidden and nobody may set foot on the sand. On land, the park authority has built a path with boardwalks from which visitors can look at it from afar. The boat trips on this page that include Budelli respect the same rules and show it from offshore.
Caprera is reached by crossing a bridge from the island of La Maddalena. Garibaldi made his home here and died here in 1882, and the buildings and belongings he left now form the Compendio Garibaldino, open to the public since 1976. The Italian Ministry of Culture describes it as the most visited museum in Sardinia, and it is accessible to visitors with disabilities.
Its core is the white house, built in 1856-57, where seven rooms all open into one another: an entrance hall, a study, three bedrooms, the kitchen and a dining room. A further room was added later and came to be called the death room; Garibaldi used it to receive relatives and friends. Relics of his years as a fighter, personal mementoes and the original furniture show daily life in the house with Francesca Armosino, his last companion, and their two children. Clelia, the elder, stayed on Caprera until she died in 1959, while Manlio, who loved the sea, died suddenly of tuberculosis at 26.
Around the white house stand the other buildings that Garibaldi put up with his son Menotti and a few close helpers: a wooden house, an olive press, an oven, a stable, a mill and the iron house. That last one was a prefabricated building from England, given to Garibaldi, which served as his office and as lodgings for guests arriving on the island; today it holds the library of the general and of his direct descendants. The family burial ground lies in the middle of the farm. Garibaldi rests in a granite tomb, and beside him are buried Francesca Armosino, his third wife, and five of his children: Manlio, Clelia, Rosa, Anita and Teresita.
In the town on the island of La Maddalena, the parish church of Santa Maria Maddalena stands on the square named after it, a few dozen metres from Cala Gavetta. Islanders and soldiers of the Savoy garrison built the first church after 1780, and it became the parish church in 1793. Between 1814 and 1819 a larger church replaced it on the same spot, backed by Giorgio Andrea Des Geneys, the admiral who founded the Royal Sardinian Navy, then based at La Maddalena; it has a single nave and four chapels along each side. The church still treasures a crucifix and a pair of silver candlesticks that Horatio Nelson, the English admiral, presented in 1804, and the feast of Santa Maria Maddalena falls on 22 July.
The boat trips leave from the Sardinian coast, and on most of them the crew picks the day's anchorages according to wind and sea. From Palau you can take a boat tour on a restored motorship with swimming stops at Caprera, Budelli and Spargi, a full-day catamaran trip with a fish lunch on board, a day under sail with an experienced captain and lunch or a sailing day that passes the Pink Beach of Budelli. From Cannigione there is a catamaran tour with an aperitif and lunch and a sailboat day trip with lunch and wine. Ashore, an e-bike tour from Palau follows the roads and tracks of La Maddalena or Caprera, and a guided hike across Caprera ends at the cove of Cala Coticcio.
Every trip that starts or stops here is also listed on the destination page.
No. The beach is fully protected, so landing on the sand is not allowed and boats cannot stop in the water facing it; it is seen from offshore or from the park's boardwalk path.
Over the bridge that connects it to the island of La Maddalena.
The house, farm and family graves on Caprera where Garibaldi spent his final 25 years, open to the public as a museum since 1976.
On Caprera, in a granite tomb in the middle of his farm, surrounded by the graves of his wife and several of his children.
In 1804 the English admiral gave the parish a crucifix and two silver candlesticks.
Sources: Comune di La Maddalena (CC BY 4.0): spiaggia-rosa, musei-garibaldini-di-caprera, chiesa-parrocchiale-di-santa-maria-maddalena; Ministero della Cultura (cultura.gov.it) (CC BY 3.0): compendio-garibaldino-di-caprera.
