Torre del Corvo

The Torre del Corvo is one of the old Genoese coastal watchtowers on the northern tip of Isola di San Pietro, standing on a promontory above rocky coastline. The tower served the island's defence network in the eighteenth century and still commands commanding views of the channel between San Pietro and the Sardinian mainland.

The walk north from Carloforte to the Torre del Corvo along the eastern coast takes about an hour on a well-marked path that passes through maquis scrubland and offers views back toward the town. The northern cape around the tower is good for birdwatching — the island lies on the migration route for raptors crossing from Africa in spring.

things to do sight
A story
The Torre del Corvo and the other coastal watchtowers on Isola di San Pietro were built by the Genoese in the eighteenth century partly to watch for Barbary Coast pirates — the same pirate raids that eventually drove the Tabarchini off the island of Tabarka in Tunisia to resettle in Sardinia. The settlers who built the towers had themselves only recently escaped captivity: many Tabarchini had been enslaved by the Bey of Tunis before being ransomed and resettled on this island.