EUROPE · EXPEDITION E19 · EU MEGA TRIP
Twenty-one days across two islands on three ferries, and nothing driven twice. Cap Corse and Scandola, the Calanques de Piana, Corte and the Corsican nuthatch — the only bird endemic to France — Bavella and Bonifacio; then an hour across the strait to La Maddalena, Bosa’s griffons, the albino donkeys of Asinara, seven thousand nuraghi, the Giara horses, flamingos inside Cagliari and Su Gorropu. Two islands that were one landmass, and share the animals to prove it.
01 / MISSION PROFILE
The British archive has Skye and Man. This is their continental equivalent — and the only file here where the sea does most of the connecting.
Toulon to Bastia, then Bonifacio to Sardinia in an hour, then Olbia to Livorno overnight. You enter at the top of one island and leave from the middle of the other, and the only road driven twice is the French autoroute.
Corsica and Sardinia were joined until relatively recently in geological terms, and it shows: Bedriaga’s rock lizard, the Corsican finch, Marmora’s warbler and the Corsican swallowtail all live on both and nowhere else. When Corsican red deer went extinct in 1970 they were brought back from Sardinia, because it was the same animal.
The D81 to Porto and the Calanques de Piana are cut into cliff, single-track in places, unfenced, and carry buses. Several Corsican roads carry official length restrictions. Measure the van and check before you commit — turning round is often not possible.
Do one island. Corsica alone in a fortnight is comfortable and Sardinia alone is comfortable; the two together in fourteen days is a ferry timetable with scenery attached.
02 / JOURNEY LOG
Two transit days south, Corsica from Cap Corse to Bonifacio, an hour across the strait, then Sardinia from La Maddalena to the Supramonte, and the overnight boat home.
Off the shuttle and south. One of only two transit days at this end, and the ferries do the rest.
NIGHT BASE Beaune / Mâcon
Down the Rhône to the port. Be there early — island ferries load by length and they measure.
NIGHT BASE Toulon / Hyères
Off the boat and up the finger of the island — a corniche road round genoese towers, with the interior falling away on one side.
NIGHT BASE Macinaggio / Erbalunga
Not a desert but abandoned grain country gone back to maquis. The beaches at the far end are reached by track or boat, not by van.
NIGHT BASE Saint-Florent
A citadel over a bay, and hill villages behind it linked by roads that were mule paths until recently.
NIGHT BASE Calvi / Lumio
The hardest driving on the island. The D81 to Porto and the Calanques de Piana are cut into cliff, single-track in places, with buses coming the other way.
NIGHT BASE Porto / Piana
Inland to the old capital under the granite. The Restonica gorge above it runs a summer shuttle because the road cannot take the traffic.
NIGHT BASE Corte
Nuthatch country. The only bird endemic to France lives in these Laricio pines and nowhere else on earth, and it is not hard to find if you know the call.
NIGHT BASE Asco / Corte
Down to the west coast and Napoleon’s town, with the Sanguinaires islands off the point and ospreys along the coast.
NIGHT BASE Ajaccio / Porticcio
Up to seven granite needles above a pass, with the GR20 threading between them and pigs asleep in the road.
NIGHT BASE Zonza / Solenzara
A town on a limestone promontory the sea is visibly undercutting, with Sardinia twelve kilometres across the strait.
NIGHT BASE Bonifacio / Pianottoli
An hour across the Bouches de Bonifacio and you are in Italy. La Maddalena is a granite archipelago with the strictest anchoring rules in the western Mediterranean.
NIGHT BASE Palau / Santa Teresa
A Catalan-speaking town on the west coast, then the coast road to Bosa — and the only griffon vulture colony left in Sardinia.
NIGHT BASE Alghero / Bosa
A former prison island, now a national park, with a population of albino donkeys found nowhere else. No private vehicles.
NIGHT BASE Stintino / Porto Torres
Inland to Su Nuraxi, the best-preserved of some seven thousand Bronze Age towers, and World Heritage since 1997.
NIGHT BASE Barumini / Gesturi
A basalt plateau holding small semi-wild horses that have been isolated up there for centuries. Walk in early; they water at the pools.
NIGHT BASE Gesturi / Tuili
Flamingos breeding in a lagoon inside the city since 1993, in thousands, with a tram running past them.
NIGHT BASE Cagliari outskirts
North-east into limestone country — caves, shafts and Su Gorropu, a gorge with walls five hundred metres high and a floor a few metres wide.
NIGHT BASE Urzulei / Dorgali
The Bue Marino cave, named for the monk seals that have gone, then north to the port for the overnight sailing.
NIGHT BASE Olbia / aboard
Off the boat and north-west. The transit home begins.
NIGHT BASE Lyon / Chambéry
The last run north. Book an afternoon shuttle.
NIGHT BASE — aboard —
All three ferries must connect, and two of them sell out. The mainland crossings book up months ahead for July and August, and they charge by vehicle length — measure honestly, because they will, and a discrepancy at the ramp is expensive. The Bonifacio crossing is short and frequent but still worth booking. Build a spare day before the final sailing rather than after it.
03 / OPERATIONS BRIEFING
04 / THE ACCESS STACK
Scandola permits no landing at all and boat numbers are now limited. Asinara takes no private vehicles. Cala Goloritzé caps daily visitors. Su Nuraxi is guided-entry only. All of it exists because the alternative was visible damage.
The Parc naturel régional de Corse covers a third of the island and is free on foot. La Maddalena, Asinara and the Golfo di Orosei are Italian national parks with tight marine rules — buoys not anchors, over seagrass.
National Trust covers Northern Ireland and nothing on the continent; English Heritage has no reciprocal arrangement anywhere here. Budget an access line for this file.
Most of these bodies protect land that is already free to walk on — joining funds the work rather than buying entry. The exceptions worth real money are the Dutch Museumkaart, the Irish OPW card, and DNT or STF if you will use the hut networks.
05 / THE EUROPE MATRIX
A bird endemic to one island and one tree species. Lungless salamanders that breathe through their skin. Horses isolated on a basalt plateau. Albino donkeys on a former prison island. A cat that may or may not be a new species. And sea silk woven from a shellfish by one remaining practitioner. The whole archive lives on the Europe Matrix page.
★ RARE
The only bird species endemic to France, found on one island, in one tree — the Laricio pine — and nowhere else on earth. Around two thousand pairs, and fire is the thing that could end it.
LUCKY
Sardinia holds a large share of the world population, and it is named for Eleonora of Arborea, who protected it by law in 1392 — the first raptor protection anywhere.
LIKELY
Small semi-wild horses on a basalt plateau in central Sardinia, isolated there for centuries, and unlike any other breed in Europe.
★ RARE
The ghjattu volpe, known to shepherds for centuries and dismissed as folklore. Genetic work from 2019 suggests it may be a distinct lineage, and the science is not finished.
COMMON
A limestone gorge in the Supramonte with walls five hundred metres high and a floor a few metres wide — among the deepest canyons in Europe.
COMMON
Around seven thousand Bronze Age stone towers across Sardinia, built without mortar from about 1800 BC, and found on no other island.
LUCKY
Extinct on Corsica by 1970 and reintroduced from Sardinia, which held the same subspecies. Both islands now have it again because the other one did.
LIKELY
Brought by Neolithic farmers and gone feral for six thousand years, on the high rocky ground of Asco and Bavella.
★ RARE
Down to a handful of pairs and still falling — one of the most fragile populations in Europe, and the subject of a supplementary feeding programme.
COMMON
Corsica holds one of the densest red kite populations anywhere in Europe, and they are over every village and tip.
LIKELY
On the high granite, and often seen from the Restonica or Asco roads without walking.
LIKELY
Down to three pairs in the 1970s and now recovered — the Corsican population reseeded ospreys across the western Mediterranean.
LUCKY
One of the rarest gulls in the world in the eighties, and now breeding on the Corsican and Sardinian islets.
LIKELY
Shearing the swell off Cap Corse, and their night calls at the colonies sound like a child crying.
LIKELY
A full species found only on Corsica, Sardinia and a couple of Tuscan islands, and split from the citril finch only recently.
LUCKY
A grey scrub warbler of Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearics, and of nowhere else at all.
★ RARE
In cold mountain streams above a thousand metres, found only on this island, and an indicator that the water is genuinely clean.
★ RARE
An island endemic breeding in winter pools and rock basins, and among the more restricted amphibians in Europe.
LUCKY
A distinct island form, on wet chestnut-wood paths after rain and never in sunshine.
LUCKY
On high granite slabs and stream boulders, found only on Corsica and Sardinia.
COMMON
On every wall, ruin and rock on both islands, and different on almost every islet.
★ RARE
In the coastal maquis, protected, and criminal to collect or move. There is a breeding centre at Moltifào.
COMMON
Corsican pines reaching fifty metres and several centuries, straight enough that Genoa used them for ship masts — and the only tree the nuthatch will use.
COMMON
Cistus, myrtle, arbutus and lentisk covering half the island, and scenting the air far enough out to sea that Napoleon claimed he could smell it.
COMMON
A whole region planted with chestnut by the Genoese, which fed the island for centuries and is still called the chestnut civilisation.
COMMON
Free-ranging, acorn- and chestnut-fed, and entirely unbothered by traffic — which is a driving note as much as a wildlife one.
COMMON
A UNESCO reserve of red porphyry cliffs reachable only by boat, with ospreys on the stacks and no landing permitted at all.
COMMON
Red granite eroded into towers and arches above the sea, on a road that is genuinely too narrow in places.
COMMON
A town on a limestone promontory that is visibly undercut by the sea, with Sardinia twelve kilometres across the strait.
COMMON
A marine park shared with Italy, holding dolphins, grouper and one of the best-protected stretches of the Mediterranean.
COMMON
Seven granite needles above a pass, with the GR20 threading between them.
COMMON
Widely called the hardest waymarked long-distance path in Europe — a hundred and eighty kilometres along the island’s spine.
COMMON
Granite gorges with glacial lakes above them, and roads that are narrow, steep and regulated by shuttle in summer.
COMMON
Not a desert but abandoned grain country gone back to maquis, with beaches at the end of tracks a van cannot use.
COMMON
The largest Corsican lagoon, holding waders, flamingos and eels, with the airport beside it.
LIKELY
The interior has almost no light and a great deal of altitude, and the summer nights are long and dry.
COMMON
The maquis burns and regenerates, but the pine forests do not recover in a human lifetime. Fire restrictions in summer are absolute.
★ RARE
One colony survives, on the coast near Bosa, after poisoning nearly ended them. Numbers are now rising again with supplementary feeding.
LUCKY
A small albino donkey population on a former prison island, now a national park, and found nowhere else.
LIKELY
The same subspecies that was sent back to Corsica, and recovered here from a few hundred animals in the sixties.
LIKELY
On the Supramonte and the Gennargentu, and the source stock for several mainland reintroductions.
LIKELY
A distinct small island subspecies, abundant, and the reason every vineyard is fenced.
★ RARE
Speleomantes — lungless salamanders breathing entirely through their skin, found in Sardinian caves and on the Italian mainland and nowhere else in Europe.
LUCKY
An island endemic calling from reeds and ditches through the spring.
★ RARE
In cold Supramonte streams, and among the most restricted amphibians in the Mediterranean.
COMMON
Breeding in a lagoon inside the city of Cagliari since 1993, in thousands, with a tram line running past them.
LUCKY
On the uninhabited islands off the coast, and recovering across the whole Mediterranean.
COMMON
Named for the island and scolding from every scrub bush on both of them.
LIKELY
Enormous and blue in the coastal reedbeds, and recovered from near-loss in Italy.
COMMON
Worked pans at Cagliari and Sant’Antioco, with the birds feeding between the harvests.
★ RARE
The Grotta del Bue Marino is named for the monk seal that used it. They have gone, and occasional sightings still get reported.
★ RARE
Byssus threads from the noble pen shell, woven into cloth on Sant’Antioco. One practitioner remains, and the shell itself is now dying across the Mediterranean.
COMMON
The highest massif on the island, holding snow into spring, and the emptiest country in Sardinia.
COMMON
Limestone plateau riddled with caves, shafts and gorges, and among the least developed landscapes in the Mediterranean.
COMMON
Coves reachable only on foot or by boat, with a limestone pinnacle above one of them and a daily visitor cap.
COMMON
Granite islands in a national park between the two big ones, with the strictest anchoring rules in the western Mediterranean.
COMMON
Sardinia produces most of Italy’s cork, stripped by hand every nine years from trees that live two centuries.
COMMON
There are around three sheep for every person on the island, and pecorino sardo is the reason.
COMMON
One of a handful of places on earth with unusual numbers of centenarians, and studied for decades to work out why.
COMMON
Rock-cut tombs older than the nuraghi, called fairy houses, and carved with bull horns and false doors.
COMMON
Stone statues over two metres tall, found by a farmer in 1974, and older than any comparable figure in the western Mediterranean.
COMMON
A sea cave under a Capo Caccia cliff, reached by six hundred and fifty steps or by boat, and closed whenever the sea is up.
COMMON
Cured mullet roe from the Cabras lagoon, and the tonnara at Carloforte, which still works the spring run.
COMMON
Seagrass beds that are the nursery of the whole sea, and the reason anchoring is regulated so tightly around La Maddalena.
LUCKY
The Pelagos sanctuary reaches these waters, and fin whales are recorded between the islands and the mainland.
LUCKY
Nesting on Sardinian beaches in increasing numbers, with nests fenced and watched by volunteers.
LIKELY
The interior is one of the least light-polluted parts of Italy, and the Barbagia has almost nothing in it at all.
COMMON
The north-westerly that shapes the west coast, closes the ferries, and makes the sailing.
COMMON
Almond blossom in February and the whole maquis flowering by April, when the islands are at their best.
COMMON
Cistus, myrtle and rosemary across both islands, and the reason the honey is what it is.
COMMON
Free-ranging pigs and boar on both islands, on the road at dusk, and a genuine hazard on a mountain bend.
COMMON
Urchins, blennies and octopus in water clear enough to read through, on granite that never seems to end.
COMMON
The sound of both islands from June, and it stops the instant you look.
LUCKY
Feeding on strawberry-tree fruit in the maquis, and the most spectacular butterfly in Europe.
★ RARE
A species found only on Corsica and Sardinia, tied to a single plant, and protected on both.
LIKELY
A serious flush in the Castagniccia and the Sardinian oak, and picked with local knowledge.
COMMON
Monte Cinto and the Gennargentu both hold real snow, forty miles from a subtropical beach.
The field law. Island endemics have nowhere else to go, which changes the arithmetic entirely — a fire, a disease or a collector does damage that cannot be replaced from elsewhere. Hermann’s tortoise is protected and criminal to collect or move. Scandola permits no landing. Anchoring over Posidonia is regulated because the seagrass takes decades to recover. And on these two islands above all others, nothing is worth a summer fire.
05B / THE ENGINE ON THIS FILE
The same figures the Europe Engine ranks this file on, shown here so you can judge it before you plan around it.
best monthsworkableout of seasonmost Matrix entries in season
66 of 77 Matrix entries on this route are in season in June — the most of any month, worth 221 points. The leanest is January with 40.
4 days of the 21 are transit or at sea. Everything else is time in the seat getting there and back, and the engine counts it against your window whether you enjoy it or not.
Both this file and the getting there sit inside the zone, so it spends 21 of your rolling ninety. With 90 days left you would have 69 after.
Out of season: July, August. April to June and September to October. July and August are hot, the ferries and campsites are full, and fire restrictions close much of the interior. February and March in Sardinia are almond blossom and empty roads.
05B · NEAR NEIGHBOURS
Ranked by shared ground first, then by tier and demand — the files most likely to come up in the same search.
21d · EU MEGA TRIP · France
21d · EU MEGA TRIP · France
21d · EU MEGA TRIP · France
06 / EXPEDITION TOOLKIT
This is the file where length, width and height matter more than weight. Ferries price by length; Corsican roads restrict by it. Measure with the rack and the bikes on, and write the numbers down where you can find them at a ticket desk.
Run the budget core with the crossings as the largest single item. Fuel and pitches are modest; the boats are not. Booking early is worth real money on the mainland legs.
Run the off-grid core with doubled water for July and August — though the honest advice is not to come then at all.
Including the transit and the sea days. Check it in the Europe Engine against anything else planned for the same half-year.
07 / DEPARTURE CHECK
08 / OPEN MAP
09 / WHERE NEXT
Your ferry leaves from its coast, and Provence and the Camargue share the maquis, the cicadas and the fire rules. Chain them and the transit days become a file.
Your return boat lands an hour from its route, and both files share the Tyrrhenian, the turtles and the heat rule about July.
The archive’s British island files, and the reason this one exists. Ferry logistics, endemic species and single-track roads, at a smaller scale and closer to home.
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