The Gallura and the Maddalena
Granite carved by the wind, and sixty-two islands in front of it.
The Gallura is the island's north-eastern corner and it is made of granite: wind and rain have carved it into shapes that look deliberate, and in many places the landscape is a spread of round boulders among junipers. At Capo Testa and in the Valle della Luna, above Santa Teresa, the effect is stronger than anywhere else.
Off the coast lies the Maddalena archipelago: seven main islands and some fifty islets, a national park since 1994. La Maddalena has a town and is reached by ferry from Palau in twenty minutes; Caprera, joined by a bridge, is where Garibaldi spent his last years and his house is a museum.
The beaches
The best are on uninhabited islands and are seen by dinghy or on organised trips: Budelli, Spargi, Santa Maria. The pink beach of Budelli owes its colour to the fragments of a microorganism, and has been closed to walking since 1994: you look at it from the boat and that is all.
The campsites lie along the coast between Santa Teresa, Palau and San Teodoro, and are among the largest on the island. A little to the south begins the Costa Smeralda, developed from 1962 and at quite another price: you drive through it, you look, and you go back to sleep elsewhere.