Asinara (land of the donkey), is a large but remote island off the northwestern tip of Sardinia with a fascinating history. Humans have been there since Neolithic times, but the scarcity of fresh water has kept the populations to a minimum over time. It didn’t become Italian state property till the end of the 19th century, when the locals who lived there were shipped off to found the village of Stintino on the mainland to make room for a penal colony on the island. Ironically the penal colony had its own herd of cows, a cheese factory, a vineyard, and even a pasta factory (priorities – it is Italy). Then it was a quarantine site, and was a POW camp during WW1.
A maximum security prison was built in the 1970’s to house terrorists and members of the mafia, and the island became known as Italian Alcatraz. Then it all came to an end in 1997 when the island and neighboring waters were turned into a nature preserve. Almost no building has been done since and the remnants of all the past buildings have been left to decay. There are more donkeys (including the famous albino ones) than anything else there these days.
We were lucky enough to get a mooring at the island, and were ‘stuck’ there for four days as the mistral winds howled in from France. We had a chance to explore Cala Oliva where you can visit the remnants of the old prison. It is now called a museum of memory, and does a very thoughtful job of considering the concept of prison in such a beautiful remote place. It does not try to hide the history, but rather invite reflection.
There was one restaurant open and we treated ourselves to our newly favorite Sardinia pasta, culurgiones (pasta meets pierogi stuffed with potato and mint).
We had originally taken a mooring in Cala Reale, only to return from exploring that it was suggested that we move our boat to one of the smaller mooring fields up island for better protection. We didn’t need urging (I thought those mooring fields (only 8 moorings each) wouldn’t have had room, and we high-tailed it to Cala Bianca where we found one other boat. There were some tourist boats the next few days that braved the winds to come for a swim, but otherwise it was just a few of us hanging out swimming and relaxing till we could move on.
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