Spiaggia del Relitto, the wreck-named cove on Caprera, and how to reach it

Overview

Spiaggia del Relitto — Shipwreck Beach, as its English name has it — is one of the coves on Caprera, the island reached from the town of La Maddalena by a short causeway rather than by boat. It does not carry the fame of the archipelago’s headline beaches, and that is not really a mark against it: Caprera is largely protected land, known more for the house where Garibaldi lived and is buried than for its shoreline, and this cove earns its visit on the strength of its water and the story behind its own name rather than on a postcard reputation. For anyone based in the town, the easy swim is Punta Tegge on La Maddalena’s own island; Relitto is the one worth the ride across the causeway, and like every cove on Caprera it needs no boat at all — which is what separates it from the archipelago’s headline beaches.

The sand and the water

Like the rest of the archipelago, the shore here is granite rather than limestone: an arc of strikingly pale sand held between granite at the cove’s edges, with the easy entry in the middle. The water is the reason to come — the clarity the archipelago is known for holds in this cove too, running from pale green in the shallows to a deeper turquoise a short swim out, and it makes a mask and snorkel worth packing even for a short stop. The name is earned the literal way: the skeleton of the Trebbo, a motorsailer that caught fire and beached here in 1955 while carrying coal to Cagliari, still sits at the shoreline, and you walk up to it rather than swim out to it. Treat it as something to look at rather than touch or climb on, both because it will not survive handling and because Caprera is a protected reserve. This is an unmanaged cove rather than a lido, so do not expect it to be run as one.

Getting there

Caprera itself is covered in the city guide: the causeway and the ways across it apply here as they do to every cove on the island. What is specific to Relitto is how far down the island it sits — the cove is at Caprera’s far south-east, beyond the hamlet of Stagnali and across the isthmus onto the Punta Rossa headland, one of the longer approaches on the island and a real ride rather than a stroll from the causeway. The last stretch is a dirt road ending in a car park about 250 metres from the sand, so the final leg is on foot whatever gets you across the island. Settle what you need before setting off, since once inside the park there is little chance to buy anything on the way.

Practicalities

Pack water, food and sun cover before setting off: Caprera is a nature reserve where development is deliberately kept minimal, so there is little to count on finding along the way. The park’s rules apply on the sand as everywhere else on the island — nothing is taken away, whether sand, shells or the seagrass that keeps the water clear, and boats keep their distance from anchoring over it. The season that suits Relitto is the one that suits the whole archipelago: roughly April to October, calmest and clearest in late spring and early summer, before the August crowds and the afternoon breeze that tends to build over open water later in the season. Bring your own shade rather than counting on finding it, as on most of these granite coves, and aim for the morning if the point of the visit is having the wreck and the water to yourself.