The Tabarkan village and the tuna of the tonnara
Off the south-western coast of Sardinia, the Isola di San Pietro has a unique history. In 1738 the King of Sardinia, Charles Emmanuel III, granted it to a community of Ligurians from Pegli, near Genoa, who had lived for two centuries on the island of Tabarka, off the coast of Tunisia, fishing for coral, and had been forced to leave. They founded Carloforte, named after the king, and still speak their ancient Genoese dialect, the tabarchino, and keep a Ligurian identity: Carloforte, with its pastel-coloured houses, palm trees and seafront promenade, looks more like a village of the Ligurian Riviera than a Sardinian one.
The island is also famous for the tonnara, the traditional tuna fishing with a complex system of fixed nets, which captures the bluefin tuna in spring during its migration; the final phase, the mattanza, was for centuries a dramatic ritual. Carloforte celebrates this tradition every year at the end of May or beginning of June with the Girotonno, an international festival of tuna cooking. The island has a wild coast of volcanic cliffs, the Colonne, two basalt sea stacks, and Capo Sandalo, where the rare Eleonora's falcon nests. Ferries leave from Calasetta and Portovesme.
Tip: try the tuna in all its forms and the "cascà", a Tabarkan dish of couscous with vegetables; the boat tour around the island shows its caves and cliffs.
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