Off the north-eastern coast, the La Maddalena archipelago gathers seven main islands – La Maddalena, Caprera, Spargi, Santa Maria, Budelli and the others – today protected as a National Park. They're famous for pink beaches (Budelli) and some of the clearest water in the Mediterranean, but also for the story of Giuseppe Garibaldi, who lived and died on Caprera.
A little further south, off Olbia, the island of Tavolara rises as a limestone block over 500 metres high, nicknamed 'the little Australia'. To the north-west, Asinara is an almost entirely uninhabited reserve-island, a former penal colony now a National Park, famous for the albino donkeys that give it its name. To the south-west, Sant'Antioco and San Pietro hold Carloforte, a village of Ligurian origin with a cuisine and dialect unique in Sardinia.
