Tavolara is a small island lying off the North-Eastern coast of Sardinia and representing a limestone rock with a length of 5 km and a width of about 1 km, the Highest peak of the island – Monte Cannone (565 meters). You can get here by boat from Olbia – ships to moor in the bays Spalmatore di Fuori in the northeast or Spalmatore does Terra in the South-West. Nearby are the Islands Molaro and Masarotto.

Today on the Tavolara, which is part of created in 1997 reserve of Tavolara and Punta Code Cavallo", lives just a few families, who are mainly engaged in the tourism business. The island is a very popular destination with divers who come here to admire the colonies of corals, sponges, sea anemones, bottlenose dolphins and rare giant mollusk Pinna nobilis.

The history of Tavolara very unusual. In the mid-18th century, when it was established as the Kingdom of Sardinia, the island was not included in its composition, and remained the property of the family Bertoloni. A hundred years later, in 1836, Sardinian king Charles albert, who visited the Tavolara, acknowledged Giuseppe Bertoloni sovereign ruler. Then, the island passed to his son Giuseppe, who in 1845 became king Paolo I. After the unification of Italy in 1861, Tavolara again remained independent, and Paolo I even sought the sovereignty and formal recognition of the new state. Only after his death in 1886 monarchy on the island was replaced by a Republic and universal suffrage was introduced. However in 1899 the monarchy headed by the dynasty of Bertoloni was restored – it was recognized even by the British Queen Victoria, who had sent a photographer to take a picture for your collection of Royal portraits. In 1903 the king of Italy Victor Emmanuel III signed the Treaty of friendship between countries. In the future, the rulers of Tavolara succeeded each other, but on the island itself practically lived. In 1962, died Paolo II, and on the Tavolara was built radiogoniometer station NATO, putting the actual end to the independent existence of the Kingdom of Tavolara. At the same time the majority of the population of the island was resettled, and their place was taken by military. The current descendant of the kind of Bertoloni – Tonino – manages the local restaurant "Da Tonino", and his works in La Spezia is the Prince Ernesto Jeremiah di Tavolara. Today is part of Tavolara Italy, although officially declared the annexation was never.

Among the interesting sights Tavolara can be called a rock in the shape of a human figure, which is called the "Stone guard" or "Papal rock." Other attention-grabbing rock formations – "Bow of Ulysses" (natural arch) and the Grotta del Papa (the cave with cave paintings Neolithic times). On the Tavolara grows prickly cornflower – endemic species found only here. And since the 1960-ies in the coastal waters of the island there is a colony of monk seal, a species under threat of extinction.