Vacation In Sardinia
Just like the title, it’s all about Vacation In Sardinia. I thoroughly enjoyed writing and researching this one. Hope you get good value from it!
Sardinia is a wonderful place for vacation with its pristine rolling hills and pristine white beaches.
It is said that Sardinia is the Hawaii of Italy, a place in Italy where you can go for a vacation, far away from the noisy day-to-day of your city, and without spending hours on the road. This is true. Once you leave behind the chaos of big cities like Bologna or Turin and start moving towards the west side of Italy, you will almost forget that you are in Italy: the landscape changes from big city buildings to green hills surrounding charming villages and grander cities (like Cagliari). In fact, Sardinian’s economy is based mainly on agriculture and tourism: saffron, wine and artisan cabinet makers are some of the main products exported.
The island of Sardinia is beautiful. It’s also home to some innovative technology—not to mention beautiful beaches and great food. Here are the best things to do in Sardinia when you’re not relaxing at one of its incomparable resorts or enjoying some of the area’s great wines.
Italy offers so much to holidaymakers: food and wine, art and architecture, high peaks and bosomy Tuscan hills, but relatively few Brits come here for sun and sand. To UK tastes, Italy simply doesn’t do seaside very well: beaches are often given over to hotel and bar concessions, with rows of sunbeds differentiated only by the colour of their umbrellas and the trashiness of their euro-pop. Only a corner at the least attractive end will be spiaggia libera – for people who just want to rock up and lie on a towel.
Vacation In Sardinia
Sardinia isn’t like that: lists of the island’s best beaches run into the hundreds, and there are many more unnamed coves and wedges of white, silver or golden sand around its 1,000km-plus of coastline, peninsulas and islands. Some popular beaches are concessionised – though even these tend to be so spacious that plenty of spiaggia libera remains. There are wild beaches for those prepared to tote their own supplies, but most have a shack selling drinks, ice-creams and snacks.https://interactive.guim.co.uk/uploader/embed/2015/07/travel_sardinia_map/giv-30080AWrfS1QbLO4W/
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And if you think Sardinia is expensive, think again. Its image is skewed by the Costa Smeralda, an undeniably beautiful area in the north-east around the town of Porto Cervo, developed by the Aga Khan in the 1960s. Its rash of yachting, golfing, millionaire-style development has spread as far as Palau in the north and south towards Olbia. But elsewhere, from the Catalan-flavoured north-west to the south’s white dunes, from the rocky east to sometimes surfable west, Sardinia’s coast offers space, surprisingly low prices (though accommodation costs jump in August) and a friendly welcome – particularly in these euro-critical times, when fewer Italians can afford a trip. Add budget flights to Alghero, Cagliari and Olbia, ancient villages, nuraghe (neolithic remains) for history buffs, and all the pizza, artisanal gelato and great-value wine you’d expect, and Sardinia is the perfect holiday island. Here are a few coastal favourites, with places to sleep and eat.
THE SOUTH
East of the island’s capital, Cagliari, beaches suffer from proximity to the city and the SP71 coast road. But an hour’s drive west and south – blue sea on your left, flamingo-dotted lagoons on your right – is ridiculously fortunate Chia. For a little resort to have not one perfect crescent of pale sand but five can only be called greedy. Even better, the beaches are backed by a strip of protected dunes, so there’s barely a building visible from the shore; most holiday homes and hotels cluster on a hillside a mile away.
The central beach, Campana, slopes gently into clear water and has several bars (with sunbeds) plus windsurf and kayak hire, but the most impressive is huge Su Giudeu to the west, on a spit between lagoon and sea, its couple of bar concessions lost in the wide soft sands. My favourite is eastern Su Portu, under the stone watchtower. One end is slightly stony at the water’s edge, but its intimate size and almost circular shape make up for that.
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Another hour round the coast, linked by causeway to the “mainland”, is the laid-back island of Sant’Antioco. From the harbour, steep streets lead to the old town and one of Europe’s oldest churches, fifth-century Sant’Antioco. It’s worth paying €5 to tour the Roman, Punic and early Christian catacombs, complete with frescoes, and at a pleasant year-round 18C. Young guide Marco told us how there are catacombs under the whole old town, and one elderly resident uses those below her house as cool summer sleeping quarters – cheaper than aircon.
South of the causeway, Maladroxia beach is justly popular, if narrow by Sardinian standards, but the town of Calasetta, on Sant’Antioco’s northern tip, is almost as well-favoured as Chia, with three white-sand bays in increasing sizes. The one nearest Calasetta, Sottotorre, is a pretty, perfect locals’ beach, with clear water and no concessions – but it’s worth driving a few kilometres to Le Saline and Spiaggia Grande, with their wide sweeps of sand, barely a building in sight, and free parking.
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Calasetta’s grid of 18th-century streets is also home to a modern art gallery, the MACC (Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Calasetta, via Savoia 2, €3, open 6-9pm only). Nearby, Piazzale Torre has a 1756 watchtower, a great setting for sunset yoga classes (7.30pm Tuesdays and Thursdays), and there are great views towards San Pietro island from the belevedere, where oldsters chat on granite benches still warm from the day’s sun.
Where to eat
The outdoor restaurant at Torre Chia campsite (pizzas from €4, fish mains from €10, +39 070 92 30 054, via del Porto 21, campeggiotorrechia.com) behind Su Portu beach is a good budget choice. Sardinians are less fixated on carb-heavy primi piatti than the mainlanders: it’s normal to leap straight from (substantial) antipasto to the main meat or fish event. A shared fish antipasto of six little plates was €9 and felt like a main meal.
You can dine on fish with your feet almost in the sand at Calasetta’s La Caletta (mains from €15, Via Sotto Torre 22, +39 345 253 3184), but we also enjoyed an evening in the hubbub of the central square. A few streets back on aptly named Piazza Belly, portions at Il Pirata (+39 078 188 025) were huge, service chaotic but friendly, and dinner for two with wine under €50. Try fregola sarda (pasta balls) with seafood sauce, and mussels with fresh tomato.
Where to stay
In Chia, Hotel Spartivento (doubles from €130 B&B, hotelspartivento.it) is a little hard to find (turn right past the town’s only big hotel, the sprawling Laguna) but worth the effort. Low-rise buildings sit on a green slope with views over fields to Su Giudeu beach. Bedrooms are delved into the hillside, and some have little stone terraces with handy rosemary bushes for drying your swimwear. The outdoor dining room overlooks lawns dotted with trees, and a pool edged with rocks and driftwood. A free shuttle bus means guests can avoid paying (from €4 a day) to park down by the beach.
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In a quiet residential area west of town, Calasetta’s newest hotel is two-storey Le Sabbie (from €64 B&B, lesabbie.com) with super-friendly staff and 30 doubles. There’s no pool, but a short walk takes you to Sottotorre beach; the town centre is a short walk in the other direction.
THE WEST
An hour’s drive north-west from Cagliari is the elegant provincial capital of Oristano, and some of the west’s best beaches are on the nearby Sinis peninsula, which is quiet, flat, and perfect for exploring by bike. At its edge, Torre Grande has 3km of south-facing beach, backed by pinewoods and low grassy dunes. This is a good base for older families (the sand shelves steeply under the water – not ideal for toddlers). The low-rise town is nicely buzzy, with lots of cafes, a long traffic-free seafront full of cyclists and skateboarders, and teenagers playing football by the “big tower”.
Wild beach beauty is a short drive away. San Giovanni di Sinis at the far south of the peninsula is a gentle arc of fine sand backed by low, fossil-laden cliffs: perfect for snorkelling, it also has impressive Greek ruins. Further north, Is Arutas glistens white between ochre-coloured rocks, the “sand” actually tiny quartz pebbles like so much risotto rice. It’s very pretty, comfy to lie on and doesn’t get everywhere, unlike sand – no good for sandcastles, though. Parking is free and plentiful. The peninsula’s west-facing beaches are also, in spring and autumn, one of Italy’s few surf spots.
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In northern Sinis, try parking almost anywhere on the Su Pallosu road and pick a footpath down to the shore. The corrugated headland hides myriad tiny sandy bays: follow the locals.
Where to eat
Unpretentious beach restaurants are the norm in Sinis: at Turroi in San Giovanni (via Lungomare, +39 334 302 9630) a marinated mullet antipasto was delicious and the pizza the best I’ve had in years (dinner for two with wine €50 including tip). Stella del Mare in Putzu Idu (via Benedetto Sanna, +39 342 311 8005) was similar – hectic but smiley, with great prawns and calamari. Ring ahead to bag a table on the sea-view terrace.
Where to stay
A lovely walk through pinewoods from the beach, Hotel Gran Torre (doubles from €60 B&B, hotelgrantorre.it), near Torre Grande, is pleasantly fuss-free, with blue-and-white rooms and a pool. In Putzu Idu, 25km north of Oristano, slightly posher Hotel Raffael (doubles from €95 B&B, hotelraffael.com) has a pool and beautiful grounds. Putzu Idu’s white beach is minutes away, or hire bikes (€3 an hour, €10 a day) and explore sandy tracks inland, between wheatfields and vineyards edged with palm trees.
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Good road links to Oristano mean it’s possible to see a different Sardinia by staying a little way inland and visiting beaches by car. For atmosphere and setting Santu Lussurgiu, a 1,000-year-old village built into the caldera of a long-extinct volcano 35km from the coast, is hard to beat. Hotel Sas Benas, (doubles from €110, sasbenas.it) in its medieval centre, was converted in 2012 from several townhouses. Having to abandon the car and find it on foot when the satnav gave up in tiny streets was part of the fun. And its restaurant, on a nearby square, is excellent.