Caprera, La Maddalena: Garibaldi's house, the beaches and the path to Cala Coticcio

Caprera, La Maddalena’s second island, is the one you can reach without a boat: a causeway about 600 m long links it to the main island, and the road runs on to Garibaldi’s house and the car parks above the beaches. Around 15.7 km² of pine, granite and coves, with no village and no hotels, two museums and the best-known beach in the archipelago after Budelli’s.

Below we set out what to see, how to split a day between history and swimming, and what changed in 2021 for anyone hoping to walk down to Cala Coticcio.

Garibaldi on Caprera

Giuseppe Garibaldi bought his first share of the island and settled here in 1856. He built the low white house in a South American style, planted vines and trees, kept livestock and wrote; he died here on 2 June 1882. The Compendio Garibaldino (Garibaldi’s house museum) keeps the place as he left it: the furnished rooms and personal objects, the bed turned towards the sea, the garden and the granite tomb in the small family cemetery.

The second museum is the Memoriale Giuseppe Garibaldi, opened in 2012 inside Forte Arbuticci on the hill facing the channel towards Corsica. It is a modern display of documents, film and a historian’s reading of the general’s life, and the ramparts look out over the whole northern archipelago. Opening times and tickets for both museums shift with the season, so check the official channels before you set off.

Insider tip: do the Compendio first thing, as it opens, and the Memoriale in the afternoon. Garibaldi’s house is small and loses a great deal when coach groups are queuing through it, while the fort has space and a breeze even at 3 pm.

Caprera, La Maddalena: the causeway, the road and Monte Tejalone

The Passo della Moneta is the narrow channel between La Maddalena and Caprera, crossed by a road causeway. You can drive, cycle or take the local bus across; the ferry from Palau (Delcomar or Maddalena Lines, about 15–20 minutes) carries cars, so most visitors arrive with their own vehicle straight from the Gallura coast. Ferry and parking detail sits on our page about La Maddalena. Olbia Costa Smeralda, the nearest airport, has summer flights from several UK airports.

Past the causeway the road forks: right for the Compendio Garibaldino and the southern beaches, left for the pine wood, the sailing school and the northern coves. The car parks are small and unsurfaced, and in August they fill by mid-morning.

Monte Tejalone, about 212 m, is the high point of the island. The path leaves the Compendio road and climbs through granite and juniper to a platform with a view across the archipelago, from Spargi to Razzoli and on to Corsica. Allow a good hour there and back, with closed shoes and water: there is no shade on the upper section.

The beaches of Caprera

Caprera’s coves have no facilities at all: no bar, no sunbeds, no toilets. What they have instead is clear water over granite and, apart from the two or three easiest, very few people even in August. These are the ones to know, with the kind of access each needs.

• Spiaggia del Relitto (Shipwreck Beach). On the west side facing La Maddalena, with a wooden boardwalk down to the sand and the timbers of an old hull showing at the shoreline. The channel shelters it, so the water is almost always flat: the sensible choice with children.
• Cala Portese. In the south, wide and shallow, out of the mistral. A short walk from the parking area.
• Spiaggia dei Due Mari. A tongue of sand with water on both sides, so you pick whichever side is out of the wind.
• Cala Andreani. South-west, fine sand and granite boulders, usually quiet.
• Cala Garibaldi. Close to the Compendio, small and handy for a swim after the museum.
• Cala Napoletana and Cala Brigantina. North-east, reached by 20–30 minute paths through the pines: white sand and nobody about, but no shade.
• Cala Coticcio. The most photographed of them, on the east side, with walking access regulated since 2021 (see below).

The full table of wind exposure and facilities is in our guide to the beaches of La Maddalena.

Cala Coticcio: the rule since 2021 and the guided hike

Cala Coticcio, nicknamed “Tahiti”, is a double cove of white sand and pink granite on the eastern flank of the island. For years an unrestricted path brought hundreds of people a day onto a fragile stretch of coast; since the summer of 2021 the Parco Nazionale dell’Arcipelago di La Maddalena has allowed access on foot only with an authorised park guide, within a daily visitor quota and with advance booking. The trail from the Caprera road runs about 3 km each way over rock, and closed shoes are compulsory.

The simplest way to book is the guided hike listed on GetYourGuide: the listing states 3.2 km, 160 m of ascent, an hour and a half of walking with an authorised park guide, an aperitivo (drinks with snacks) included and your own transport to the trailhead. It rates 4.8 out of 5 from 23 reviews at the time of writing, with the price shown on the listing. Check the available dates well ahead, because the daily quota goes quickly in July and August. The alternative is to book through the park’s own site.

By sea the bay is still reachable under park rules: some archipelago tours make a swimming stop there, and the private RIB trip puts it on the programme. We have gathered the rules, timings and practical advice on our Cala Coticcio page.

Insider tip: for the hike carry at least a litre of water each, a hat and proper walking shoes rather than trainers. The last section is smooth granite slabs on a descent. The swim at the bottom repays the effort, but the climb back in the heat is the moment people regret flip-flops.

Centro Velico Caprera

On the north-west side, in the bay of Porto Palma, the Centro Velico Caprera is one of Italy’s best-known sailing schools: residential courses of one or two weeks, from dinghies to keelboats, with trainees living on the base between the drill ground and the boats. It is not somewhere to visit, but it explains why there are always sails practising in the channel and why so many tour skippers learned their trade here.

Planning your day

• Half a day: ferry from Palau, the Compendio Garibaldino, a swim at Cala Garibaldi or Spiaggia del Relitto, then back.
• A full day: Compendio in the morning, Cala Portese or Due Mari for lunch, the Memoriale at Forte Arbuticci late in the afternoon.
• An active day: the guided hike to Cala Coticcio, then Monte Tejalone if your legs hold out, or a sheltered beach instead.
• Without a car: the bus from La Maddalena as far as the Compendio, on a thin timetable; check departures at the stop by the harbour. The island works well by bike, with short but steep climbs.

Bring water, food, reef-safe sun cream, closed shoes, water shoes for the coves and a bag to carry your rubbish out. Park rules apply here as everywhere: no sand or pebbles as souvenirs, no fires, drones only with authorisation. For the rest of the chain, which you cannot reach from Caprera by land, start with our overview of the islands of the archipelago.

Caprera from the sea

Most boat trips out of Palau run past Caprera without stopping. If you want it among the stops, choose the four-island tour from Cannigione, which lists it alongside Spargi, Budelli and Santa Maria, or the seven-island circuit. The vintage motorboat with four swimming stops is the classic day among the smaller islands instead, listed from €76 on GetYourGuide: check the dates if you want to pair a day ashore on Caprera with a day at sea between Spargi and Budelli.

In short

Caprera, La Maddalena’s quiet second island, is the part of the archipelago you explore slowly, by car or by bike: the house where Garibaldi lived and died, the Memoriale inside the fort, coves with no services and the regulated path to Cala Coticcio. If you want to reach the island’s “Tahiti” on foot, check availability and the price of the guided hike with an authorised park guide on GetYourGuide before the day’s quota is gone.