It was the 'Italian Alcatraz'—now nature has reclaimed its space
For more than a century, Asinara was a land of exiles, war prisoners, and mafia bosses. Today, it is a Mediterranean sanctuary where nature has finally reclaimed its borders.
“It was immediately clear to me that there’s no place in Sardinia like it—in fact, only a few spots in the whole Mediterranean can claim such a level of environmental integrity,” says freediver Alessandro Masala about his early immersions in waters surrounding Asinara, an island dotting the western Mediterranean off the coast of Sardinia.
In the early 2000s, when Masala began exploring Asinara’s 68-mile (110 kilometers) coastline, the island had only recently gained the national park title. The pristine state of its marine environment, though, had earlier roots: For over a century, the rugged silhouette of this remote slice of earth had been off-limits for anyone but prisoners and guards.
Since the gates of the "Italian Alcatraz" swung shut for the last time in 1997, the island has undergone a radical transformation, or perhaps, a restoration. Cells with rusting bars that once hosted mafia bosses and terrorists of Italy’s “Lead Years” still stand, but nature has now reclaimed its space, as the growing population of free-roaming indigenous albino donkeys make clear to anyone who visits.
The eviction
It’s an unusually warm February day when I approach Cala Reale, the uninhabited settlement in northern Asinara linked by ferry to Porto Torres. Marking the skyline below the Mediterranean scrub-covered hills are two of the buildings that have defined the island’s modern history, Palazzo Cala Reale, the former summer residence of Italy’s royals (now the national park’s headquarters), and the abandoned Stazione Sanitaria Marittima, once the sanitary station.
Both were built starting from 1885, when Asinara began the traumatic transformation that would alter its identity forever. At this time, the intensification of maritime trade in the Mediterranean led the Italian government to establish an isolated quarantine station where ships arriving from other continents could stop to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
To implement this decree, authorities evicted Asinara’s resident population— approximately 500 people of Sardinian and Ligurian origins. “My grandparents were among the families kicked out of their homes to set up the first quarantine station in the Kingdom of Italy,” explains Masala, who is now one of the handful of people who spend the majority of the year on Asinara, running the Cala d’Oliva Diving Center.
“It was an exodus in the true sense of the word. A whole new village, Stintino, was created in Sardinia proper to house the exiled families. By the time the national park was established, the asinaresi (Asinara people) no longer existed.”
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From sanitary station to concentration camp
At the turn of the century, approximately 200 prisoners worked Asinara’s sunburned land, left behind by the exiled families transferred to Stintino and Porto Torres. The number would grow exponentially in 1915, when the island received 24,000 Austro-Hungarian war prisoners, transported by land and sea from the Balkans.
Asinara was far from ready to host such a large population. A massive cholera outbreak soon transformed the island into a feared epidemic hotspot; roughly 7,000 prisoners, nearly a third of the new arrivals, died within months, their bodies left unburied for weeks due to a lack of digging tools.
Steps away from the harbor in Cala Reale, the chapel built by the prisoners still stands today, featuring stained glass windows painted by the artist István Szász. Less than a mile west along the road that runs to Tumbarino, the monumental, cross-shaped Austro-Hungarian Ossuary, built in 1936, collects the remains of war prisoners extracted from mass graves.
Asinara’s conversion into a concentration camp for WWI prisoners kick-started an era of violence that would last for decades after the war, through some of the darkest chapters of Italian history.
The shadow of colonial crimes
In 1937, at the height of Italy’s colonial expansion, the Viceroy of Ethiopia, Rodolfo Graziani, became the target of an assassination attempt by two Eritrean members of the Ethiopian resistance, who attacked the occupying Italian authorities, killing seven people and injuring around 50, including Graziani.
In response to the attack, Mussolini immediately ordered the purge that would result in the infamous Addis Ababa massacre. Thousands, including the innocent monks and pilgrims of the Debre Libanòs monastery, were killed by Blackshirts during one of Fascist Italy’s worst crimes against humanity.
Some were spared. Three-hundred members of the Ethiopian elite were deported to Asinara to undergo "sanitary observation and disinfection" before being moved to Italy to be kept under surveillance by the government. In this group was Princess Romanework, the eldest daughter of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, who in 1937 suffered the death of her two-year-old son, Gideon, in Cala Reale.
Maximum security prison
In the post-war period, discussions to turn Asinara into a national park began circulating, but soon enough, another national emergency got in the way. Starting in 1971, the state revived isolation tactics to curb the criminal influence of growing mafia groups and, later, to confine the leaders of the Red Brigades, the far-left militant organization active in Italy from 1970 to 1988. The extreme conditions cut all communication channels with the outside world, allowing criminal organizations to keep in touch with their network.
The island’s final high-security chapter began in 1985, when judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino drafted the Maxiprocesso indictment, the largest and most significant trial against organized crime in Italy’s history, within Asinara’s safe confines. Both judges, still the best-known figures in the history of Italy’s fight against the mafia, were assassinated in 1992, leading Asinara to become the epicenter of the newly introduced Article 41-bis "hard prison" system, a regime of complete isolation designed specifically for mafia bosses, including Salvatore Riina.
Throughout Asinara’s history, only one prisoner, Sardinian Matteo Boe, managed to escape the island’s maximum-security prison. He did so in 1986 by jumping on a speedboat driven to the coast by his accomplices.
Nature’s return to Asinara
The prison closed in 1997, allowing Asinara to transition into a national park. The prison's restricted access inadvertently created one of the most biodiverse marine areas in the Mediterranean, free from mass tourism and industrial fishing.
Today, the Asinara donkey—a rare breed of albino donkey indigenous to the island and at risk of extinction—has regained its territory and can now be seen hopping among former prison buildings and juniper bushes with wild horses.
“I fell madly in love with this place from the start,” says Masala. “At a depth of just 10 meters, you can find an incredible number of fish. When we go snorkeling, we can see everything from the surface: barracudas, sea breams, groupers, not to mention the richness of the seabed, the flora is absolutely stunning.”
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It was during one of these dives in 2023 that Masala rediscovered a shipwreck that had been lost for 80 years. The Sogliola had been used by the Italian Royal Navy to transport military vehicles during World War II. In 1943, it was intercepted by Allied forces and sunk by a British submarine. “The shipwreck shows exactly how nature has reclaimed its space. There is this beautiful duality—untouched by humans, the shipwreck has acted as a magnet, evolving until it has become something entirely alive," says Masala.
How to visit Asinara
Delcomar ferries depart from and return to Porto Torres daily during the high season (May to September) and three times a week (Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday) during the low season, giving you enough time to explore for a full day. There’s also a 20-minute ferry between Stintino and Fornelli, at the southern tip of the island.
Unauthorized motor vehicles are not allowed on Asinara. To make the most out of the trip, rent an electric mountain bike at E-bike Asinara in Porto Torres. Andrea Spano, the shop owner, is a veteran Asinara cyclist always ready to provide helpful tips.
Starting from the small port of Cala Reale, the 12.5-mile (20 kilometer) northern route takes you past the former royal Savoy residence and an Austro-Hungarian chapel before heading north along the coast. Along the way, you'll encounter the eerie Sanitary Station that once housed WWI prisoners, the 17th-century watchtower, and the albino donkeys that roam freely.
A rewarding climb leads to Cala d'Oliva, the whitewashed former maximum-security prison settlement where you’ll find the Locanda del Parco, Asinara's only hotel and restaurant, and Alessandro Masala’s diving center. If you’re visiting off-season, stock up on water and supplies before boarding the ferry.
From Cala d'Oliva, the rugged Lighthouse Route leads to the heavenly Cala Sabina and Cala Giordano—two stunning, unspoiled coves ideal for a swim or a picnic. On the return leg, cycle through the former settlement of La Reale, now taken over by nature, and stop at the Austro-Hungarian Ossuary.
A final dip at Cala dell'Ossario rounds off the journey before the ferry back to Porto Torres. If time and fitness allow, you can extend the trip all the way to Fornelli and return to the mainland from there. Summers can be scorching—be prepared.
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