Book
Close

Book your holiday

Island of Asinara

From penal colony to National Park

Asinara is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea that has not been extensively built on – as such, it remains a wilderness, home to myriad species of birds and fish.

Since 1998, it has been protected as part of the Asinara National Park with a view to preserving the environmental value of what was, until a short time before, a maximum-security penal colony.
The excursion starts with a bus ride from our hotel to the Tanca Manna port in Stintino; from here, we take a boat that sails across the crystal-clear water for 20 minutes before reaching the pier at Fornelli.

During the boat trip you will be able to admire the beauty of Isola Piana, a delightful small oxbow sitting between Asinara and the wonderful Pelosa beach in Stintino.

From Fornelli, our guide will lead us on a voyage of discovery around the island on the brightly coloured Asinara tourist train, which comes to a stop at the village of Cala Reale.
During the train ride, you will be delighted by the extraordinary beauty of the landscape, where numerous animals run wild, including mouflon, boar, horses and the very special albino donkeys, which constitute the island’s main attraction in terms of fauna.

In the skies above, peregrine falcons are joined by numerous species of migratory birds. The trip offers plenty of opportunities to appreciate the splendour of the landscape and the animals, take photos and examine the old prison buildings close up.

In summer, you can even take a dip in the island’s clear waters. On reaching Cala Reale, we pause for lunch (not included in the price) and for a visit to the museum hub. We then head off towards Cala d’Oliva to visit the former prison complex and the works of famed sculptor Enrico Mereu.
The excursion also includes a visit to the Austro-Hungarian charnel house, the Tumbarino wildlife observatory (where biologists will be on hand to answer your questions) and the turtle sanctuary (where the vets will be delighted to provide you with more information).
We then return to Stintino on the boat and then by coach to the hotel.

(Coach + boat + tourist train with guide / duration: full day)

You might also be interested in
Accessibility
close
Accessibility Information

Together with our selected providers, we are committed to ensuring that our services are accessible to people with disabilities. We devote significant resources to ensure that our website and room booking pages are easier to use and more accessible for individuals with disabilities, based on the strong belief that everyone has the right to live with dignity, equality, comfort, and independence.

Along with our partners, we continuously strive to improve the accessibility of our website and the pages for booking rooms and/or purchasing additional products and services related to the stay. We firmly believe it is our collective moral obligation to allow seamless, accessible, and unhindered use, even for those of us with disabilities.

In our ongoing efforts to improve and consistently address accessibility issues, we regularly scan all web pages using accessibility scanners provided by third-party commercial partners to identify and fix any potential accessibility barriers on our site. Despite our efforts to make all our web pages and content fully accessible, some content may not yet have been fully adapted to the strictest accessibility standards. This may be due to not having yet found or implemented the most appropriate technological solution.

Compliance Status

This website and the room booking pages are partially compliant with the technical standard for websites and mobile applications UNI CEI EN 301549, and with the “AA” accessibility level required by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.
In particular, the compliance level of this website is constantly monitored through the tools provided by:
https://mauve.isti.cnr.it/
https://pagespeed.web.dev/

Non-accessible Content

Despite our efforts to ensure the accessibility of the website and booking pages, we are aware of some limitations we are working to resolve. Below is a description of the known limitations. Please contact us if you encounter an issue not listed below.

  • Image text alternatives: Some images do not have meaningful text alternatives for users.
  • Reading order: Due to the modular structure of some pages, the reading order of elements may not match their visual order.
  • Focus contrast: In some cases, when elements receive focus, there may be insufficient contrast between text color and background.
  • Keyboard operability: Some components cannot be operated using only a keyboard.
  • Animated content: Some pages contain animated content that cannot be paused or hidden.
  • Focus visibility: In some pages, the element with active focus is not visually identifiable.
  • Language accessibility: Some elements display text or accessible names only in certain languages.
  • Assistive technology: Assistive technologies may not always correctly announce messages.

Last Updated

This page on accessibility was last updated on June 25, 2025.