Description of the attraction
Tavolara is a small island lying off the northeastern coast of Sardinia and is a limestone rock 5 km long and about 1 km wide. The highest peak of the island is Monte Cannone (565 meters). You can get here by boat or speedboat from the city of Olbia - ships can be moored in the bays of Spalmatore di Fuore in the northeast or Spalmator or Terra in the southwest. Nearby are the islands of Molaro and Molarotto.
Today, Tavolara, part of the Tavolara and Punta Coda Cavallo nature reserve, created in 1997, is home to only a few families, who are mainly involved in the tourism business. The island is a very popular destination for diving enthusiasts who come here to admire coral colonies, sponges, sea anemones, bottlenose dolphins and the rare giant clam Pinna nobilis.
Tavolara's story is quite unusual. In the middle of the 18th century, when the Kingdom of Sardinia was created, the island was not included in it, but remained in the ownership of the Bertoleoni family. One hundred years later, in 1836, King Charles Albert of Sardinia, who visited Tavolara, recognized Giuseppe Bertoleoni as sovereign ruler. Then the island passed to his son Giuseppe, who in 1845 became King Paolo I. After the unification of Italy in 1861, Tavolara again remained independent, and Paolo I even sought to obtain sovereignty and official recognition of the new state. It was only after his death in 1886 that the monarchy on the island was replaced by a republic and universal suffrage was introduced. True, already in 1899, the monarchy led by the Bertoleoni dynasty was restored - it was recognized even by Queen Victoria of Great Britain, who sent a photographer here to take a picture for her collection of royal portraits. In 1903, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy signed a treaty of friendship between the countries. In the future, the rulers of Tavolara replaced each other, but practically did not live on the island itself. Paolo II died in 1962 and a NATO radio goniometric station was built on Tavolara, effectively ending the independent Kingdom of Tavolara. At the same time, most of the island's population was resettled, and their place was taken by the military. The current descendant of the Bertoleoni family, Tonino, runs the local restaurant Da Tonino, and Prince Ernesto Jeremia di Tavolara represents his business in La Spezia. Today Tavolara is part of Italy, although there has never been an official annexation.
Among the interesting sights of Tavolara can be called a rock in the form of a human figure, which is called the "Stone Guard" or "Papal Rock". Other eye-catching rock formations are the Ulysses Arc (a natural arch) and the Grotte del Papa (a cave with Neolithic rock carvings). On Tavolara, the thorny cornflower grows - an endemic species found only here. And since the 1960s, a colony of monk seals, an endangered species, has existed in the coastal waters of the island.
