According to Victor Bérard, a writer and scholar of Homer, Capo d'Orso is the only place in the Mediterranean identifiable as being the 'land of the Laestrygonians', the giant cannibals who were the protagonists of the 10th book of the Odyssey and who inflicted serious defeats and forced Ulysses' desperate escape. The hero of the tale disembarked here, near the spring of Arcacia ('of the bear'), in search of food and water for the crew, which went onto become the local population's “feast". An aura of legend surrounds the cape before the La Maddalena Archipelago National Park, taking its name from a spectacular natural sculpture that extraordinarily resembles the shape of a bear seemingly nodding towards the sea. It is the Roccia dell’Orso ('Bear Rock'), a natural monument visited by thousands of hikers. It stands on a granite elevation, being over 120 metres in height, watching over the nearby village of Palau, a renowned tourist resort nestled in a cove in northern Gallura, close to the Costa Smeralda.